This section covered AWS's compute services for deploying, managing, and scaling apps — some require you to manage infrastructure, others are fully serverless.
🐳 Docker
A containerization platform that packages an app with everything it needs — libraries, dependencies, runtime — into a container, so it runs consistently anywhere.
Containers are portable, lightweight, easy to deploy and scale. Docker itself isn't an AWS service, but AWS provides several services to run Docker containers.
📦 Amazon ECS
AWS's managed container orchestration service. You run Docker containers on EC2 instances you provision and manage — ECS handles scheduling and managing containers on top of that infrastructure.
Best when you want more control over your servers.
🚀 AWS Fargate
A serverless compute engine for containers. Runs Docker containers with no EC2 instances to manage — AWS provisions the infrastructure automatically behind the scenes.
📁 Amazon ECR
AWS's private Docker image repository. Before ECS or Fargate can run a container, the image needs somewhere secure to live — that's ECR. Integrates directly with both.
⚙️ AWS Batch
Runs large-scale batch jobs — tasks with a clear start and finish. AWS Batch automatically provisions and manages the compute (EC2 instances) needed, using Docker containers, and runs on top of Amazon ECS.
💡 Amazon Lightsail
A simplified cloud platform for users with little or no cloud experience — bundles virtual servers, storage, databases, and networking into one service with simple, predictable pricing.
Exam tip: commonly a distractor — "new to AWS," "simple deployment," "predictable pricing," "minimal configuration" → Lightsail.
⚡ AWS Lambda
AWS's Function as a Service (FaaS). Upload code as functions; AWS runs them automatically whenever needed, scaling from one invocation to thousands per second with zero infrastructure management.
Pricing: execution time + memory allocated + number of invocations
Languages: Node.js, Python, Java, C#, Ruby, custom runtimes — plus container images (only if they implement the Lambda Runtime API)
Max execution time: 15 minutes
Common uses: S3-triggered thumbnail generation, scheduled (cron) jobs
Exam tip: Lambda can run some container images, but ECS/Fargate remain the preferred services for Docker workloads.
🌐 Amazon API Gateway
Lambda functions aren't directly reachable over HTTP — API Gateway sits in front of them, exposing Lambda as secure, scalable REST or HTTP APIs.
Built-in: security, authentication, API keys, throttling, monitoring.
🎯 Exam Tips — Quick Reference
Service | Remember This |
|---|---|
🐳 Docker | Packages apps into portable containers |
📦 ECS | Docker on EC2 instances you manage |
🚀 Fargate | Docker, serverless — no servers to manage |
📁 ECR | Private Docker image repository |
⚙️ Batch | Large-scale batch jobs, runs on top of ECS |
💡 Lightsail | Beginner-friendly, predictable pricing |
⚡ Lambda | Serverless FaaS, auto-scaling, pay per use |
🌐 API Gateway | Exposes Lambda as secure HTTP APIs |
Classic combo: Lambda + API Gateway = fully serverless application backend.