Increase Ephemeral Storage For ECS Fargate Tasks

Hey guys! Today, we're diving into a super important request that could seriously boost the capabilities of ECS Fargate: increasing the maximum ephemeral storage size. Currently, Fargate tasks are capped at 200 GB, and for many of us, that just doesn't cut it. Let's break down why this is a big deal and how a higher limit could make our lives a whole lot easier.

The Need for More Ephemeral Storage in Fargate

When we talk about ephemeral storage, we're referring to temporary storage that's available to your Fargate tasks during their runtime. Think of it as a scratchpad – a place where your containers can read, write, and process data without needing to persist it long-term. This is incredibly useful for a variety of workloads, especially those dealing with large datasets or complex operations.

Workloads That Benefit from Increased Storage

So, what kind of workloads are we talking about? Well, there are several scenarios where a larger ephemeral storage limit would be a game-changer:

• Big Data Processing: Imagine you're crunching massive datasets, running complex transformations, or generating intermediate files. All these operations require significant temporary storage. With the current 200 GB limit, you might find yourself hitting a wall pretty quickly.
• Heavy I/O Operations: Some applications perform a lot of read and write operations during their lifecycle. Think about tasks like video transcoding, image processing, or large-scale simulations. These tasks often need more temporary space than the current limit allows.
• Build Processes: Building software can be a storage-intensive process. Compiling code, packaging applications, and running tests can all consume a significant amount of disk space. If you're using Fargate for your CI/CD pipelines, a higher storage limit could make a huge difference.

Why Not Just Use EBS or EFS?

You might be thinking, "Why not just attach EBS or EFS volumes?" That's a valid question, and in some cases, it's the right answer. However, there are several reasons why ephemeral storage is often a better fit for these types of workloads:

• No Persistence Needed: The key word here is ephemeral. We're talking about data that doesn't need to stick around after the task is done. If you're processing a dataset and generating a result, you only need the storage for the duration of the task. Once the job is complete, the temporary data can be discarded.
• Automatic Creation and Destruction: Ephemeral storage is automatically provisioned when your task starts and deprovisioned when it ends. This means you don't have to worry about manually creating and managing volumes, which simplifies your infrastructure and reduces operational overhead.
• Reduced Complexity and Cost: Using EBS or EFS adds complexity to your setup. You need to provision volumes, manage their lifecycle, and potentially pay for storage you're not actively using. Ephemeral storage, on the other hand, is included with your Fargate tasks, making it a more cost-effective and straightforward solution.

The Current Limitations and Their Impact

The current 200 GB limit on ephemeral storage can be a real bottleneck for many applications. When you hit this limit, you might have to resort to workarounds like:

• Splitting Workloads: Breaking up large tasks into smaller chunks that fit within the storage limit. This adds complexity to your application logic and can impact performance.
• Optimizing Storage Usage: Spending time and effort optimizing your application to minimize its storage footprint. While this is generally a good practice, it can be time-consuming and may not always be feasible.
• Using EBS/EFS for Everything: Over-relying on persistent storage solutions like EBS or EFS, even when ephemeral storage would be a better fit. This can lead to increased costs and management overhead.

These workarounds aren't ideal. They add complexity, increase costs, and can hinder the performance and scalability of your applications. That's why increasing the maximum ephemeral storage size is such a crucial request.

The Proposed Solution: A Higher Storage Limit

The request is simple: increase the maximum ephemeral storage limit for Fargate tasks beyond 200 GB. A limit of, say, 500 GB would provide a significant boost for many workloads, allowing us to run larger, more complex tasks without hitting storage constraints. This would open up new possibilities for using Fargate in a wider range of scenarios.

Benefits of Increasing the Limit

• Improved Performance: With more temporary storage available, your tasks can process larger datasets and perform more complex operations without running out of space. This can lead to significant performance improvements.
• Simplified Architecture: You can avoid the need for complex workarounds like splitting workloads or over-optimizing storage usage. This simplifies your application architecture and makes it easier to manage.
• Cost Savings: By using ephemeral storage more effectively, you can reduce your reliance on persistent storage solutions like EBS and EFS, potentially saving money on storage costs.
• Increased Flexibility: A higher storage limit makes Fargate a viable option for a broader range of workloads, giving you more flexibility in how you design and deploy your applications.

Use Cases and Examples

To illustrate the impact of this change, let's look at some specific use cases where a higher ephemeral storage limit would be incredibly valuable:

1. Large-Scale Data Processing

Imagine you're running a data analytics pipeline that processes terabytes of data. Your tasks need to read, transform, and write large intermediate datasets. With the current 200 GB limit, you might have to break up your pipeline into smaller stages, adding complexity and potentially slowing things down. A 500 GB limit would allow you to process larger chunks of data in a single task, streamlining your pipeline and improving performance.

2. Video Transcoding

Video transcoding is a storage-intensive process. You need to decode the video, perform various transformations, and encode it into a new format. This often involves creating large temporary files. If you're transcoding high-resolution videos, you can easily exceed the 200 GB limit. A higher limit would allow you to transcode more videos concurrently and handle larger files without running into storage issues.

3. Machine Learning Model Training

Training machine learning models can require significant disk space for storing datasets, intermediate results, and model checkpoints. If you're training large models on complex datasets, you might find yourself constrained by the current storage limit. Increasing the limit would enable you to train larger models more efficiently.

4. Scientific Simulations

Scientific simulations often involve complex calculations and the generation of large datasets. For example, climate modeling, fluid dynamics simulations, and molecular dynamics simulations can all produce massive amounts of temporary data. A higher ephemeral storage limit would allow researchers to run more complex simulations on Fargate.

Community Support and Next Steps

This request has the potential to significantly improve the Fargate experience for many users. By increasing the maximum ephemeral storage size, we can unlock new possibilities and make Fargate an even more powerful platform for running containerized workloads.

If you agree that this is a valuable enhancement, please show your support by giving a thumbs up to the original issue. Your votes help the community and maintainers prioritize this request. And remember, let's keep the discussion focused and avoid adding noise with "+1" or "me too" comments. If you're interested in contributing to this effort or have any insights to share, please leave a comment – your input is highly valued!

Let's work together to make Fargate even better!