AWS Copilot

Installing AWS Copilot

If you have Homebrew on your Mac or Linux system, you can use the following command in your terminal to install AWS Copilot

Command:

brew install aws/tap/copilot-cli

Output:

After the installation, let’s see how you can deploy containerized applications with just one command.

Deploying Applications using AWS Copilot

Before getting started, there are a few prerequisite steps that you need to complete.

• Install Docker
   
• Setup AWS Account
   

Once you are done with the steps above, run the commands below to install the AWS CLI.

curl "https://awscli.amazonaws.com/AWSCLIV2.pkg" -o "AWSCLIV2.pkg"
sudo installer -pkg AWSCLIV2.pkg -target /

Now, run the following command in the terminal to set up a default profile that the AWS Copilot CLI will use to manage your application and services. Enter your access key ID and access key secret, which can be found in your AWS account security credentials, and also set the region as us-west-2, as it is enabled in your AWS account by default.

Command:

aws configure

Output:

Now, enter the following command in your terminal to host a demo app on AWS, and also make sure docker is running before you run this command.

Command:

git clone https://github.com/aws-samples/amazon-ecs-cli-sample-app.git demo-app && \ 
cd demo-app &&                               \
copilot init --app demo                      \
  --name api                                 \
  --type 'Load Balanced Web Service'         \
  --dockerfile './Dockerfile'                \
  --port 80                                  \
  --deploy

Output:

To verify the status of your service, run the following command.

Command:

copilot svc show

Output:

As you can see, we have successfully deployed the demo app using AWS Copilot.

Run the following command in your terminal to clean up all the used resources and delete the demo app.

Command:

copilot app delete

Output:

Now, we will look at some common use cases of AWS Copilot.

Use Cases of AWS Copilot

The following are some use cases of AWS Copilot:-

• Containerized App Deployment: AWS Copilot makes it very easy for you to deploy containerized applications to AWS using just a single command
  
   
• Boilerplate Generation: With AWS Copilot, you can generate Dockerfiles, load balancer setups, and service configurations
  
   
• Environment Management: You can manage multiple deployment environments of a single containerized application
  
   
• Monitoring Services: AWS Copilot makes it easy to configure logging and monitoring services like Amazon CloudWatch

Frequently Asked Questions

What are containerized applications?

These applications run within a container which is a lightweight and isolated environment with its file system, resources, and networking. You can use Docker or Podman to create your own containerized applications.

What is AWS Elastic Container Service?

AWS ECS is a containerized application deployment platform that simplifies deploying your Docker containers to AWS EC2 instances. It also helps you with load-balancing the incoming traffic within the ECS cluster.

What is a CI/CD pipeline?

CI/CD stands for continuous integration/continuous deployment. A CI/CD pipeline is a set of automated tools and processes that are used for building, testing, and deploying software applications. It is crucial in projects where multiple developers commit to a shared repository.

Conclusion

In summary, AWS Copilot is a CLI tool that makes managing your AWS architecture easy. You can deploy and monitor containerized applications with some simple commands. You also learned how to install AWS Copilot and how to deploy an app using just a single command.

You can go through the following articles to learn more about AWS:-

• Introduction to AWS
   
• AWS Lambda Foundations
   
• Amazon API Gateway
   

Happy Learning!