ECS FAQ

Q: What is Amazon Elastic Container Service?

Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) is a highly scalable, high performance container management service that supports Docker containers and allows you to easily run applications on a managed cluster of Amazon EC2 instances. Amazon ECS eliminates the need for you to install, operate, and scale your own cluster management infrastructure. With simple API calls, you can launch and stop container-enabled applications, query the complete state of your cluster, and access many familiar features like security groups, Elastic Load Balancing, EBS volumes and IAM roles. You can use Amazon ECS to schedule the placement of containers across your cluster based on your resource needs and availability requirements. You can also integrate your own scheduler or third-party schedulers to meet business or application specific requirements.  Show less

Q: Why should I use Amazon ECS?

Amazon ECS makes it easy to use containers as a building block for your applications by eliminating the need for you to install, operate, and scale your own cluster management infrastructure. Amazon ECS lets you schedule long-running applications, services, and batch processes using Docker containers. Amazon ECS maintains application availability and allows you to scale your containers up or down to meet your application's capacity requirements. Amazon ECS is integrated with familiar features like Elastic Load Balancing, EBS volumes, VPC, and IAM. Simple APIs let you integrate and use your own schedulers or connect Amazon ECS into your existing software delivery process. Show less

Q: What is the pricing for Amazon ECS?

There is no additional charge for Amazon ECS. You pay for AWS resources (e.g. EC2 instances or EBS volumes) you create to store and run your application. You only pay for what you use, as you use it; there are no minimum fees and no upfront commitments.  Show less

Q: How is Amazon ECS different from AWS Elastic Beanstalk?

AWS Elastic Beanstalk is an application management platform that helps customers easily deploy and scale web applications and services. It keeps the provisioning of building blocks (e.g., EC2, RDS, Elastic Load Balancing, Auto Scaling, CloudWatch), deployment of applications, and health monitoring abstracted from the user so they can just focus on writing code. You simply specify which container images are to be deployed, the CPU and memory requirements, the port mappings, and the container links.

Elastic Beanstalk will automatically handle all the details such as provisioning an Amazon ECS cluster, balancing load, auto-scaling, monitoring, and placing your containers across your cluster. Elastic Beanstalk is ideal if you want to leverage the benefits of containers but just want the simplicity of deploying applications from development to production by uploading a container image. You can work with Amazon ECS directly if you want more fine-grained control for custom application architectures.  Show less

Q: How is Amazon ECS different from AWS Lambda?

Amazon ECS is a highly scalable Docker container management service that allows you to run and manage distributed applications that run in Docker containers. AWS Lambda is an event-driven task compute service that runs your code in response to “events” such as changes in data, website clicks, or messages from other AWS services without you having to manage any compute infrastructure.  Show less

Using Amazon ECS

Q: How do I get started using Amazon ECS?

Visit our Getting Started page for more information on how to start using ECS.  Show less

Q: Does Amazon ECS support any other container types?

No. Docker is the only container platform supported by Amazon ECS at this time.  Show less

Q: I want to launch containers. Why do I have to launch Tasks?

Docker encourages you to split your applications up into their individual components, and Elastic Container Service is optimized for this pattern. Tasks allow you to define a set of containers that you would like to be placed together (or part of the same placement decision), their properties, and how they may be linked. Tasks include all the information that Amazon ECS needs to make the placement decision. To launch a single container, your Task Definition should only include one container definition.  Show less

Q: Does Amazon ECS support applications and services?

Yes. The Amazon ECS Service scheduler can manage long-running applications and services. The Service scheduler helps you maintain application availability and allows you to scale your containers up or down to meet your application's capacity requirements. The Service scheduler allows you to distribute traffic across your containers using Elastic Load Balancing. Amazon ECS will automatically register and deregister your containers from the associated load balancer.

The Service scheduler will also automatically recover containers that become unhealthy (fail ELB health checks) or stop running to ensure you have the desired number of healthy containers supporting your application.

You can scale your application up and down by changing the number of containers you want the service to run. You can update your application by changing its definition or using a new image. The scheduler will automatically start new containers using the new definition and stop containers running the previous version (waiting for the ELB connections to drain if ELB is used).  Show less

Q: Does Amazon ECS support dynamic port mapping?

Yes. It is possible to associate a service on Amazon ECS to an Application Load Balancer (ALB) for the Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) service. The ALB supports a target group that contains a set of instance ports. You can specify a dynamic port in the ECS task definition which gives the container an unused port when it is scheduled on the EC2 instance. The ECS scheduler will automatically add the task to the Application Load Balancer’s target group using this port.  Show less

Q: Does Amazon ECS support batch jobs?

Yes. You can use Amazon ECS Run task to run one or more tasks once. Run task starts the task on an instance that meets the task’s requirements including CPU, memory and ports.  Show less

Q: Can I use my own scheduler with Amazon ECS?

ECS provides Blox, a collection of open source projects for container management and orchestration. Blox makes it easy to consume events from Amazon ECS, store the cluster state locally and query the local data store through APIs. Blox also includes a daemon scheduler that can be used as a reference for how to use the cluster state server. See the Blox GitHub page to learn more.  Show less

Q: Can I use my own AMI?

Yes. You can use any AMI that meets the Amazon ECS AMI specification. We recommend starting from the Amazon ECS-enabled Amazon Linux AMI. Partner AMIs compatible with Amazon ECS are also available. You can review the Amazon ECS AMI specification in the documentation.  Show less

Q: How can I configure my container instances to pull from Amazon Elastic Container Registry?

Amazon ECR is integrated with Amazon ECS allowing you to easily store, run, and manage container images for applications running on Amazon ECS. All you need to do is specify the Amazon ECR repository in your Task Definition and attach the AmazonEC2ContainerServiceforEC2Role to your instances. Then Amazon ECS will retrieve the appropriate images for your applications.  Show less

Q: How does AWS Fargate work with Amazon ECS?

With Fargate, the concept of server provisioning, cluster management, and orchestration completely goes away. Amazon ECS uses containers provisioned by Fargate to automatically scale, load balance, and manage scheduling of your containers for availability, providing an easier way to build and operate containerized applications.  Show less

Q: How should I choose between using AWS Fargate with Amazon ECS or just using ECS?

Amazon ECS supports Fargate technology and customers will be able to choose AWS Fargate to launch their containers without having to provision or manage EC2 instances. AWS Fargate is the easiest way to launch and run containers on AWS. Customers who require greater control of their EC2 instances to support compliance and governance requirements or broader customization options can choose to use ECS without Fargate to launch EC2 instances.  Show less

Security

Q: How does Amazon ECS isolate containers belonging to different customers?

Amazon ECS schedules containers for execution on customer-controlled Amazon EC2 instances or with AWS Fargate and builds on the same isolation controls and compliance that are available for EC2 customers. Your compute instances are located in a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) with an IP range that you specify. You decide which instances are exposed to the Internet and which remain private.

• Your EC2 instances use an IAM role to access the ECS service.
• Your ECS tasks use an IAM role to access services and resources.
• Security Groups and networks ACLs allow you to control inbound and outbound network access to and from your instances.
• You can connect your existing IT infrastructure to resources in your VPC using industry-standard encrypted IPsec VPN connections.
• You can provision your EC2 resources as Dedicated Instances. Dedicated Instances are Amazon EC2 Instances that run on hardware dedicated to a single customer for additional isolation.  Show less
  Q: Can I apply additional security configuration and isolation frameworks to my container instances?
  Yes. As an Amazon EC2 customer, you have root access to the operating system of your container instances, enabling you to take ownership of the operating system’s security settings as well as load and configure additional software components for security capabilities such as monitoring, patch management, log management and host intrusion detection.  Show less
  Q: Can I operate container instances with different security settings or segregate different tasks across different environments?
  Yes. You can configure your different container instances using the tooling of your choice. Amazon ECS allows you to control the placement of tasks in different container instances through the construct of clusters and targeted launches.  Show less
  Q: Does Amazon ECS support retrieving Docker images from a private or internal source?
  Yes. Customers can configure their container instances to access a private Docker image registry within a VPC or a registry that’s accessible outside a VPC such as Amazon ECR.  Show less
  Q: How do I configure IAM roles for ECS tasks?
  You first need to create an IAM role for your task, using the 'Amazon EC2 Container Service Task Role’ service role and attaching a policy with the required permissions. When you create a new task definition or a task definition revision you can then specify a role by selecting it form the ’Task Role’ drop-down or using the ‘taskRoleArn’ filed in the JSON format.  Show less

Elastic Beanstalk

Q: What is AWS Elastic Beanstalk?
AWS Elastic Beanstalk makes it even easier for developers to quickly deploy and manage applications in the AWS Cloud. Developers simply upload their application, and Elastic Beanstalk automatically handles the deployment details of capacity provisioning, load balancing, auto-scaling, and application health monitoring.

Q: Who should use AWS Elastic Beanstalk?
Those who want to deploy and manage their applications within minutes in the AWS Cloud. You don’t need experience with cloud computing to get started. AWS Elastic Beanstalk supports Java, .NET, PHP, Node.js, Python, Ruby, Go, and Docker web applications.

Q: Which languages and development stacks does AWS Elastic Beanstalk support?
AWS Elastic Beanstalk supports the following languages and development stacks:

• Apache Tomcat for Java applications
• Apache HTTP Server for PHP applications
• Apache HTTP Server for Python applications
• Nginx or Apache HTTP Server for Node.js applications
• Passenger or Puma for Ruby applications
• Microsoft IIS 7.5, 8.0, and 8.5 for .NET applications
• Java SE
• Docker
• Go
  See Supported Platforms for a complete, up-to-date list of supported language and development stacks.
  Q: Will AWS Elastic Beanstalk support other languages?
  Yes. AWS Elastic Beanstalk is designed so that it can be extended to support multiple development stacks and programming languages in the future. AWS is working with solution providers on the APIs and capabilities needed to create additional Elastic Beanstalk offerings.
  Q: What can developers now do with AWS Elastic Beanstalk that they could not before?
  AWS Elastic Beanstalk automates the details of capacity provisioning, load balancing, auto scaling, and application deployment, creating an environment that runs a version of your application. You can simply upload your deployable code (e.g., WAR file), and AWS Elastic Beanstalk does the rest. The AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio and the AWS Toolkit for Eclipse allow you to deploy your application to AWS Elastic Beanstalk and manage it without leaving your IDE. Once your application is running, Elastic Beanstalk automates management tasks–such as monitoring, application version deployment, a basic health check–and facilitates log file access. By using Elastic Beanstalk, developers can focus on developing their application and are freed from deployment-oriented tasks, such as provisioning servers, setting up load balancing, or managing scaling.
  Q: How is AWS Elastic Beanstalk different from existing application containers or platform-as-a-service solutions?
  Most existing application containers or platform-as-a-service solutions, while reducing the amount of programming required, significantly diminish developers’ flexibility and control. Developers are forced to live with all the decisions predetermined by the vendor–with little to no opportunity to take back control over various parts of their application’s infrastructure. However, with AWS Elastic Beanstalk, developers retain full control over the AWS resources powering their application. If developers decide they want to manage some (or all) of the elements of their infrastructure, they can do so seamlessly by using Elastic Beanstalk’s management capabilities.
  Q: What elements of my application can I control when using AWS Elastic Beanstalk?
  With AWS Elastic Beanstalk, you can:

• Select the operating system that matches your application requirements (e.g., Amazon Linux or Windows Server 2012 R2)
• Choose from several available database and storage options
• Enable login access to Amazon EC2 instances for immediate and direct troubleshooting
• Quickly improve application reliability by running in more than one Availability Zone
• Enhance application security by enabling HTTPS protocol on the load balancer
• Access built-in Amazon CloudWatch monitoring and getting notifications on application health and other important events
• Adjust application server settings (e.g., JVM settings) and pass environment variables
• Run other application components, such as a memory caching service, side-by-side in Amazon EC2
• Access log files without logging in to the application servers
  Q: What are the Cloud resources powering my AWS Elastic Beanstalk application?
  AWS Elastic Beanstalk uses proven AWS features and services, such as Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS, Elastic Load Balancing, Auto Scaling, Amazon S3, and Amazon SNS, to create an environment that runs your application. The current version of AWS Elastic Beanstalk uses the Amazon Linux AMI or the Windows Server 2012 R2 AMI.
  Q: What kinds of applications are supported by AWS Elastic Beanstalk?
  AWS Elastic Beanstalk supports Java, .NET, PHP, Node.js, Python, Ruby, Go, and Docker, and is ideal for web applications. However, due to Elastic Beanstalk’s open architecture, non-web applications can also be deployed using Elastic Beanstalk. We expect to support additional application types and programming languages in the future. See Supported Platforms to learn more.
  Q: Which operating systems does AWS Elastic Beanstalk use?
  AWS Elastic Beanstalk runs on the Amazon Linux AMI and the Windows Server 2012 R2 AMI. Both AMIs are supported and maintained by Amazon Web Services and are designed to provide a stable, secure, and high-performance execution environment for Amazon EC2 Cloud computing.
  Q: How quickly will my application start running?
  It typically takes a few minutes to create the AWS resources to run your application, measured from the time you upload your application version (e.g., WAR file, ASP.NET files, Node.js files, PHP files, Python files, or Ruby files) to when it is fully deployed and accessible to your users. This time is dependent on a number of factors, including the size of your deployable code and the number of application servers you are deploying.
  Q: How quickly will my application get updated?
  Deploying new application versions to existing resources (e.g., environments) happens much faster (typically under a minute) and is mostly dependent on the size of the new application version.
  Q: How quickly can my application scale up and down?
  AWS Elastic Beanstalk provides a truly elastic environment using Auto Scaling. Your application can be configured to automatically scale tens or even hundreds of times based on thresholds, such as CPU utilization or network bandwidth. These thresholds can be easily configured for your specific application using the Elastic Beanstalk console. With Elastic Beanstalk, you don’t have to worry if you will be able to scale quickly to handle peaks in traffic or users, nor if you will be forced to pay for resources that you don’t need.
  Q: Can I have multiple versions of my application running at the same time?
  Yes. AWS Elastic Beanstalk is designed to support multiple running environments, such as one for integration testing, one for pre-production, and one for production. Each environment is independently configured and runs on its own separate AWS resources. Elastic Beanstalk also stores and tracks application versions over time, so an existing environment can be easily rolled back to a prior version or a new environment can be launched using an older version to try and reproduce a customer problem.
  Q: How many applications can I run with AWS Elastic Beanstalk?
  You can create up to 75 applications and 1,000 application versions. By default, you can run up to 200 environments across all of your applications. If you are also using AWS outside of AWS Elastic Beanstalk, you may not be able to create 10 environments since other limits may be hit sooner. For example, the default AWS account limits allow you to launch up to 20 EC2 instances and create up to 10 elastic load balancers. If you need more resources, complete the AWS Elastic Beanstalk request form, and your request will be promptly evaluated.
  Q: Can I use AWS Elastic Beanstalk to deploy applications that must be highly available?
  Yes. To do this, you edit your environment configuration settings, select 2 or more instances for Auto Scaling minimum, and set Multiple Availability Zones to “Any 2”. AWS Availability Zones are designed to be physically distinct, fail independently, and be reliable.
  Q: What happens if my application stops responding to requests?
  AWS Elastic Beanstalk applications are protected against failures in the underlying infrastructure. If an Amazon EC2 instance fails for any reason, AWS Elastic Beanstalk will use Auto Scaling to automatically launch a new instance. Elastic Beanstalk can also detect if your application is not responding on the custom URL even though the underlying infrastructure appears healthy, and will log that as an environment event (e.g., a bad version was deployed) so you can take appropriate action.
  Q: Which AWS Regions is AWS Elastic Beanstalk available in?
  Please refer to Regional Products and Services for details of Elastic Beanstalk availability by Region.
  Q: How do I access AWS Elastic Beanstalk?
  You can use the AWS Management Console, the AWS Elastic Beanstalk command line interface (CLI), the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio, the AWS Toolkit for Eclipse, the AWS Elastic Beanstalk API, or AWS SDKs.
  Q: Can I use an integrated development environment, like Eclipse or Microsoft Visual Studio?
  Yes. You can use Eclipse and Visual Studio to deploy your application to AWS Elastic Beanstalk. You can use the AWS Toolkit for Eclipse for Java applications and the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio for .NET applications. The toolkits allow you to develop your application, deploy it to Elastic Beanstalk, and even test it out without having to switch your focus away from your IDE.
  Getting Started
  Q: How do I sign up for AWS Elastic Beanstalk?
  To sign up for AWS Elastic Beanstalk, choose the Sign Up Now button on the Elastic Beanstalk detail page. You must have an Amazon Web Services account to access this service; if you do not already have one, you will be prompted to create one when you begin the Elastic Beanstalk process. After signing up, please refer to the AWS Elastic Beanstalk Getting Started Guide.
  Q: Why am I asked to verify my phone number when signing up for AWS Elastic Beanstalk?
  AWS Elastic Beanstalk registration requires you to have a valid phone number and email address on file with AWS in case we ever need to contact you. Verifying your phone number takes only a few minutes and involves receiving an automated phone call during the registration process and entering a PIN number using the phone key pad.
  Q: How do I get started after I have signed up?
  The best way to get started with AWS Elastic Beanstalk is to work through the AWS Elastic Beanstalk Getting Started Guide, part of our technical documentation. Within a few minutes, you will be able to deploy and use a sample application or upload your own application.
  Q: Is there a sample application that I can use to check out AWS Elastic Beanstalk?
  Yes. AWS Elastic Beanstalk includes a sample application that you can use to test drive the offering and explore its functionality. 
  Databases and Storage
  Q: Does AWS Elastic Beanstalk store anything in Amazon S3?
  Yes. AWS Elastic Beanstalk stores your application files and, optionally, server log files in Amazon S3. If you are using the AWS Management Console, the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio, or AWS Toolkit for Eclipse, an Amazon S3 bucket will be created in your account for you and the files you upload will be automatically copied from your local client to Amazon S3. Optionally, you may configure Elastic Beanstalk to copy your server log files every hour to Amazon S3. You do this by editing the environment configuration settings.
  Q: Can I use Amazon S3 to store application data, like images?
  Yes. You can use Amazon S3 for application storage. The easiest way to do this is by including the AWS SDK as part of your application’s deployable file. For example, you can include the AWS SDK for Java as part of your application's WAR file.
  Q: What database solutions can I use with AWS Elastic Beanstalk?
  AWS Elastic Beanstalk does not restrict you to any specific data persistence technology. You can choose to use Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) or Amazon DynamoDB, or use Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, or other relational databases running on Amazon EC2.
  Q: How do I set up a database for use with AWS Elastic Beanstalk?
  Elastic Beanstalk can automatically provision an Amazon RDS DB instance. The information about connectivity to the DB instance is exposed to your application by environment variables. To learn more about how to configure RDS DB instances for your environment, see the Elastic Beanstalk Developer Guide.
  Q: Does this mean I need to modify the application code when moving from test to production?
  Not with AWS Elastic Beanstalk. With Elastic Beanstalk, you can specify the connection information in the environment configuration. By extracting the connection string from the application code, you can easily configure different Elastic Beanstalk environments to use different databases. 
  Security
  Q: How do I make my application private?
  By default, your application is available publicly at myapp.elasticbeanstalk.com for anyone to access. You can use Amazon VPC to provision a private, isolated section of your application in a virtual network that you define. This virtual network can be made private through specific security group rules, network ACLs, and custom route tables. You can also easily control what other incoming traffic, such as SSH, is delivered or not to your application servers by changing the EC2 security group settings.
  Q: Can I run my application inside a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)?
  Yes, you can run your applications in a VPC. For more details, see the AWS Elastic Beanstalk Developer Guide.
  Q: Where can I find more information about security and running applications on AWS?
  For more information about security on AWS, please refer to our Amazon Web Services: Overview of Security Processes document and visit our Security Center.
  Q: Is it possible to use Identity & Access Management (IAM) with AWS Elastic Beanstalk?
  Yes. IAM users with the appropriate permissions can now interact with AWS Elastic Beanstalk.
  Q: Why should I use IAM with AWS Elastic Beanstalk?
  IAM allows you to manage users and groups in a centralized manner. You can control which IAM users have access to AWS Elastic Beanstalk, and limit permissions to read-only access to Elastic Beanstalk for operators who should not be able to perform actions against Elastic Beanstalk resources. All user activity within your account will be aggregated under a single AWS bill.
  Q: How do I create IAM users?
  You can use the IAM console, IAM command line interface (CLI), or IAM API to provision IAM users. By default, IAM users have no access to AWS services until permissions are granted.
  Q: How do I grant an IAM user access to AWS Elastic Beanstalk?
  You can grant IAM users access to services by using policies. To simplify the process of granting access to AWS Elastic Beanstalk, you can use one of the policy templates in the IAM console to help you get started. Elastic Beanstalk offers two templates: a read-only access template and a full-access template. The read-only template grants read access to Elastic Beanstalk resources. The full-access template grants full access to all Elastic Beanstalk operations, as well as permissions to manage dependent resources, such as Elastic Load Balancing, Auto Scaling, and Amazon S3. You can also use the AWS Policy Generator to create custom policies. For more details, see the AWS Elastic Beanstalk Developer Guide.
  Q: Can I restrict access to specific AWS Elastic Beanstalk resources?
  Yes. You can allow or deny permissions to specific AWS Elastic Beanstalk resources, such as applications, application versions, and environments.
  Q: Who gets billed for the AWS resources that an IAM user creates?
  All resources created by IAM users under a root account are owned and billed to the root account.
  Q: Who has access to an AWS Elastic Beanstalk environment launched by an IAM user?
  The root account has full access to all AWS Elastic Beanstalk environments launched by any IAM user under that account. If you use the Elastic Beanstalk template to grant read-only access to an IAM user, that user will be able to view all applications, application versions, environments, and any associated resources in that account. If you use the Elastic Beanstalk template to grant full access to an IAM user, that user will be able to create, modify, and terminate any Elastic Beanstalk resources under that account.
  Q: Can an IAM user access the AWS Elastic Beanstalk console?
  Yes. An IAM user can access the AWS Elastic Beanstalk console using their username and password.
  Q: Can an IAM user call the AWS Elastic Beanstalk API?
  Yes. An IAM user can use their access key and secret key to perform operations using the Elastic Beanstalk API.
  Q: Can an IAM user use the AWS Elastic Beanstalk command line interface?
  Yes. An IAM user can use their access key and secret key to perform operations using the AWS Elastic Beanstalk command line interface (CLI).
  Managed Platform Updates
  Q: How can I keep the underlying platform of the environment running my application automatically up-to-date?
  You can opt-in to having your AWS Elastic Beanstalk environments automatically updated to the latest version of the underlying platform running your application during a specified maintenance window. Elastic Beanstalk regularly releases new versions of supported platforms (Java, PHP, Ruby, Node.js, Python, .NET, Go, and Docker) with operating system, web and application server, and language and framework updates.
  Q: How can I get started with managed platform updates?
  To let Elastic Beanstalk automatically manage your platform updates, you must enable managed platform updates in the Configuration tab of the Elastic Beanstalk console or use the EB CLI or API. After you have enabled the feature, you can configure which types of updates to allow and when updates can occur.
  Q: What kinds of platform version updates will managed platform updates apply?
  AWS Elastic Beanstalk can automatically perform platform updates for new patch and minor platform versions. Elastic Beanstalk will not automatically perform major platform version updates (e.g., Java 7 Tomcat 7 to Java 8 Tomcat 8) because they include backwards incompatible changes and require additional testing. In these cases, you must manually initiate the update.
  Q: How does AWS Elastic Beanstalk distinguish between “major,” “minor,” and “patch” version releases?
  AWS Elastic Beanstalk platforms are versioned using this pattern: MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH (e.g., 2.0.0). Each portion is incremented as follows:

• MAJOR version when there are incompatible changes.
• MINOR version when there is additional functionality added in a backward-compatible manner.
• PATCH version when there are backward-compatible bug fixes.

      Q: When and how can I perform major version updates?

      You can perform major version updates at any time using the AWS Elastic Beanstalk  management console, API, or CLI.
You have the following options to perform a major version update:

• Apply the update in-place on an existing environment. See Updating Your Elastic Beanstalk Environment's Platform Version.
• Create a clone of an existing environment with the new platform version. See Clone an Environment to learn more.
  Q: How does Elastic Beanstalk apply managed platform updates?
  The updates are applied using an immutable deployment mechanism that ensures that no changes are made to the existing environment until a parallel fleet of Amazon EC2 instances, with the updates installed, is ready to be swapped with the existing instances, which are then terminated. In addition, if the Elastic Beanstalk health system detects any issues during the update, traffic is redirected to the existing fleet of instances, ensuring minimal impact to end users of your application.
  Q: Will my application be available during the maintenance windows?
  Since managed platform updates use an immutable deployment mechanism to perform the updates, your application will be available during the maintenance window and consumers of your application will not be impacted by the update.
  Q: What does it cost to use managed platform updates?
  There is no additional charge for the managed platform updates feature. You simply pay for the additional EC2 instances necessary to perform the update for the duration of the update.
  Q: What is a maintenance window?
  A maintenance window is a weekly two-hour-long time slot during which AWS Elastic Beanstalk will initiate platform updates if managed platform updates is enabled and a new version of the platform is available. For example, if you select a maintenance window that begins every Sunday at 2 AM, AWS Elastic Beanstalk will initiate the platform update sometime between 2-4 AM every Sunday. It is important to note that, depending on the configuration of your applications, updates could complete outside of the maintenance window.
  The maintenance window is set on a per-environment basis, providing you the option to set different maintenance windows for your various application components or applications. This allows environment updates to be staggered if you do not want multiple pieces of your application to be updated at the same time. If you enable managed platform updates but do not specify a maintenance window, a default weekly 2-hour window will be assigned for your environment. If you want to change when maintenance is performed on your behalf, you can do so by modifying the managed update configuration in the AWS Management Console or by using the UpdateEnvironment API.
  Q: How will I be notified of the availability of new platform versions?
  You will be notified about the availability of new platform versions through the AWS Management Console, forum announcements, and release notes.
  Q: Where can I find details of changes between platform versions?
  Details on changes between platform versions can be found on the AWS Elastic Beanstalk Release Notes page.
  Q: What operations can I perform on the environment while a managed update is in progress?
  The only action available to you while a managed platform update is in-progress is ‘abort’. This will allow you to stop the update immediately and roll back to the previous version.
  Q: Which platform version will my environment be updated to if there are multiple new versions released in between maintenance windows?
  Your environment will always be updated to the latest version available based on the level (minor plus patch or patch only) you have selected.
  Q: Where can I find details of all the managed platform updates that have been performed on my environment?
  Details for every managed platform update are available on the events page and are tagged with an event type of “MAINTENANCE.”
  Q: How often are platform version updates released?
  The number of version releases in a given year varies based on the frequency and content of releases and patches from the language/framework’s vendor or core team, and the outcome of a thorough vetting of these releases and patches by our platform engineering team.
  Billing
  Q: How much does AWS Elastic Beanstalk cost?
  There is no additional charge for AWS Elastic Beanstalk–you pay only for the AWS resources actually used to store and run your application. New AWS customers who are eligible for the AWS Free Tier may deploy an application that runs within the Free Tier using the default settings of Elastic Beanstalk.
  Q: How much do the AWS resources powering my application on AWS Elastic Beanstalk cost?
  You pay only for what you use, and there is no minimum fee for the use of any AWS resources. For Amazon EC2 pricing information, please visit the pricing section on the EC2 detail page. For Amazon S3 pricing information, please visit the pricing section on the S3 detail page. You can use the AWS simple calculator to estimate your bill for different application sizes.
  Q: How do I check how many AWS resources have been used by my application and access my bill?
  You can view your charges for the current billing period at any time on the Amazon Web Services web site by logging into your Amazon Web Services account and choosing Account Activity under Your Web Services Account.