AWS Fargate FAQs

Q: Why should I use AWS Fargate?

AWS Fargate enables you to focus on your applications. You define your application content, networking, storage, and scaling requirements. There is no provisioning, patching, cluster capacity management, or infrastructure management required.

Q: What use cases does AWS Fargate support?

AWS Fargate supports all of the common container use cases including microservices architecture applications, batch processing, machine learning applications, and migrating on-premises applications to the cloud.

Q: What is the pricing of AWS Fargate?

With AWS Fargate, you pay only for the amount of vCPU, memory, and storage resources consumed by your containerized applications.

vCPU and memory resources are calculated from the time your container images are pulled until the Amazon ECS task or EKS pod terminates, rounded up to the nearest second. A minimum charge of 1 minute applies. 20 GB of ephemeral storage is available for all Fargate Tasks and Pods by default—you only pay for any additional storage that you configure.

Fargate supports Spot and Compute Savings Plan pricing options just like with Amazon EC2 instances. You can find additional details on the pricing page.

Q: How does AWS Fargate work with Amazon ECS and Amazon EKS?

Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) is a highly scalable, high performance container management service that supports Docker containers and Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) is a fully managed Kubernetes service. Both ECS and EKS use containers provisioned by Fargate to automatically scale, load balance, and optimize container availability through managed scheduling, providing an easier way to build and operate containerized applications.

Q: How should I choose when to use AWS Fargate?  

Choose AWS Fargate for its isolation model and security. You should also select Fargate if you want to launch containers without having to provision or manage EC2 instances. If you require greater control of your EC2 instances or broader customization options, then use ECS or EKS without Fargate. Use EC2 for GPU workloads, which are not supported on Fargate today.

Q: Can I run my Arm-based applications on AWS Fargate?

Yes. AWS Fargate allows you to run your Arm-based applications by using Arm-compatible container images or multi-architecture container images in Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR). You can simply specify the CPU Architecture as ARM64 in your Amazon ECS Task Definition to target AWS Fargate powered by Arm-based AWS Graviton2 Processors.

Q: Why should I use AWS Fargate powered by Graviton2 processors?

AWS Graviton2 processors are custom built by Amazon Web Services using 64-bit Arm Neoverse cores to deliver the best price performance for your cloud workloads. AWS Fargate powered by AWS Graviton2 processors delivers up to 40% improved price/performance at 20% lower cost over comparable Intel x86-based Fargate for a variety of workloads such as application servers, web services, high-performance computing, and media processing. You get the same serverless benefits of AWS Fargate while optimizing performance and cost for running your containerized workloads.

Q: Can I run my Amazon ECS Windows containers on AWS Fargate?

Yes. AWS Fargate offers a serverless approach for running your Windows containers. It removes the need to provision and manage servers and lets you specify and pay for resources per application. Fargate provides task-level isolation and handles the necessary patching and updating to help provide a secure compute environment.

Can I use my existing Microsoft Windows License with AWS Fargate? 

Since Fargate is a serverless compute engine, customers do not need to manage the underlying compute instances running in Fargate. Therefore, Fargate will manage the Windows OS licenses for you and the cost of doing so is built into the Fargate pricing.

Q: Which Windows Server versions are supported with AWS Fargate?

Fargate supports Windows Server 2019 Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) release on Fargate Windows Platform Version 1.0.0 or later.

Q: What is changing?

AWS Fargate is transitioning service quotas from the current Amazon ECS task and Amazon EKS pod count based concurrent quotas to vCPU-based quotas for On-Demand and Spot usage. The new vCPU-based quotas will replace the existing tasks and pods count-based quotas. With vCPU-based quotas, we are simplifying the service quotas experience as your accounts’ usage against these quotas is now measured using vCPUs, the primary resource provisioned by your applications.

Q: How do vCPU-based quotas benefit me?

With vCPU-based quotas, Fargate uses the number of vCPUs provisioned by a task or pod as the quota unit. You can now more easily forecast, manage, and request quotas based on the vCPUs provisioned by your applications. Currently, you manage quotas on Fargate using task and pod count, undifferentiated by vCPUs your applications need. For example, an account with service quota of 250 tasks can launch up to 250 0.25 vCPU or 250 4vCPU tasks. With the new vCPU-based service quotas, a quota of 1,000 vCPUs allows you to concurrently launch up to 4,000 0.25 vCPU or up to 250 4 vCPUs tasks. With vCPU-based quotas, On-Demand tasks or pods and Spot tasks usage against the vCPU quotas are measured in terms of the number of vCPUs configured for your running tasks or pods.

Q: When can I start using vCPU-based quotas?

Fargate provides you the option to opt-in to vCPU quotas starting September 8, 2022. By opting in, you give yourself valuable time to make modifications to your limit management tools and minimize the risk of impact to your systems. Starting October 10, 2022, Fargate will automatically begin switching over accounts to use the new vCPU quotas in a phased manner. You will still have the option to opt-out of vCPU quotas until end of October 2022. Starting November 1, 2022, Fargate will switch all remaining accounts to vCPU quotas, regardless of opt out status, and task and pod count-based quotas will no longer be supported.

Q: How do I opt in and out of vCPU-based quotas?

If you use Amazon ECS with Fargate, you can easily and quickly opt in and opt out of vCPU-based quotas by changing your ECS account setting using the CLI as documented here. If you use Amazon EKS with Fargate, you can file a request with a request in the AWS Support Center console. You opt in or out of the vCPU-based quotas for each of your AWS accounts. Once your request to opt-in to vCPU quotas is processed, your task and pod count’s applied limit will be marked zero on the Service Quotas Console, only your vCPU-based quotas will be displayed. You should now start managing your Service Quotas using vCPU-based quotas.

Q: Are vCPU-based quotas regional?

Yes. Like task and pod count-based quotas, vCPU-based quotas for an AWS account are on a per-region basis.

Q: How can I view my current task and pod count-based quotas and new vCPU based-quotas?

You can find your current task and pod count quotas on the Service Quotas Console and by using the Service Quota API. Starting September 8, 2022, you will be able to view both current task and pod count-based quotas and new vCPU-based quotas on Service Quotas Console.

Q: Will I be able to view actual usage against these new quotas?

Yes. You can track and inspect your vCPU usage against these quotas in Service Quotas. Service Quotas also enables customers to use CloudWatch for configuring new alarms to warn customers of approaching their vCPU-based quotas.

Q: Will the migration to vCPU quotas affect running tasks and pods?

No, opting in to and out of vCPU-based quotas during this transition period will not affect any running tasks or pods.

Q: What if I run into issues with vCPU-based quotas?

If you run into issues with vCPU-based quotas, you can opt back out of vCPU quotas and remediate your systems. However, your account will automatically be transitioned back to vCPU quotas beginning November 2022. It is important for you to test your systems with vCPU quotas before November 2022.

Q: What are the changes I should be aware of with the migration to vCPU-based quotas?

If you integrate with the current quotas’ limit exceeded error, we recommend testing your systems before the transition period ends. For instance, with vCPU quotas, Fargate will return a new error message when exceeding your new vCPU quotas. This new error message for On-Demand quotas is: “You’ve reached the limit on the number of vCPUs you can run concurrently” and for Spot quotas is: ”You’ve reached the limit on the number of vCPUs you can run as spot tasks concurrently”. We recommend reviewing your system for changes if you have integration with Service Quotas, Service Quota APIs, or templates. With Amazon CloudWatch metrics integration in Service Quotas, you can monitor Fargate usage against the new vCPU-based quotas by configuring new alarms to warn about approaching quotas.

Q: How can I request a quota increase for vCPU-based quotas?

You continue to request limit increases using the Service Quotas console. To request a limit increase, select “Request Limit Increase” in Service Quota console and state your requirement in vCPUs. If you continue to use task and pod count-based quotas, you can request a limit increase against the existing task and pod count quotas.

Q: Can I still launch the same number of tasks and pods?

Yes, vCPU-based quotas allow you to launch at least the same number of task or pods as you do today with task and pod count-based quotas. If your account already has an approved quota increase, you will continue to be able to launch at least the same number of tasks or pods. Like today, new AWS accounts may start with lower quotas than the default, and these quotas can increase over time. Read our documentation for more details.

Q: What happens to my quotas if I opt out of vCPU quotas during the transition period?

If you decide to opt out during the transition period, your quotas will revert to task and pod count-based limit values you had before you opted in. Note that Fargate will however automatically switch your accounts to vCPU quotas beginning November 1, 2022.

Q: What will happen if I take no action?

Your accounts will automatically begin to use vCPU-based quotas starting October 10, 2022 as we migrate your accounts to vCPU-based quotas in a phased manner. By testing and opting in earlier, you give yourself valuable time to make modifications to your limit management tools and minimize the risk of impact to your systems.

Q: Will these new quotas have an impact on my monthly bill?

No. Fargate’s pricing remains the same regardless of task and pod count-based, or vCPU-based quotas.