Skip to main content

AutoStopping Rules for AWS ECS

AutoStopping Rules are configured for the ECS services. You need to create an AutoStopping Rule for each ECS service. There is a one-to-one mapping between the AutoStopping rule and the ECS service. When AutoStopping is configured for a specific ECS service, AutoStopping Rules monitor the traffic coming into this ECS service and start or stop the ECS tasks based on the traffic and idleness.

note

The current version of AutoStopping Rules orchestrates the ECS tasks. For the auto scaling groups (ASGs) based ECS clusters, you need a separate setup. However, Fargate clusters do not require any additional setup because the cloud provider charges per task that are running in the cluster.

Prerequisites​

Required Permissions​

  • Access to AWS Cost and Usage Reports (CUR)
  • Permissions to create cross-account IAM roles
  • For proxy-based setup: permissions to create VMs and read secrets in your AWS account
  • Permissions to create a cross-account role.
  • Permissions for AWS ECS and Resource Inventory Management.
  • Permissions for AWS Resource Optimization Using AutoStopping Rules.
note

AutoStopping rules based on ECS can only use the ALB associated with the ECS service. When creating a new AutoStopping rule, you can select the ALB.

Once configured, AutoStopping will monitor network traffic for ALB in order to keep ECS tasks running. When ALB receives no traffic, it is considered idle and ECS tasks are scaled down.

Creating an AutoStopping Rule for ECS​

  1. In Harness, navigate to Cloud Costs module -> AutoStopping Rules
  2. Click New AutoStopping Rule
  3. Select AWS as your cloud provider. Choose an existing AWS connector or click New Connector to create one.

After this, there are 3 simple steps to set up your AutoStopping rule:

  1. Enter a Name for your rule

  2. Set the Idle Time - how long an instance should be inactive before stopping

  3. In the Resources to be managed by the AutoStopping rules section, select "ECS Service".

  4. Click on Add an ECS Service. In Select ECS Service, select one of the following options:

    • ECS Service Name: If you chose ECS Service Name, select a region and a cluster to see all of their services:
      • Select the region where your cluster is hosted from the Select Region dropdown list.
      • Select your cluster from the Select Cluster dropdown list.
      • Select the ECS Service where you want to enable the AutoStopping Rule.
      • Click Add Selected.
    • ECS Service Tags: If you chose ECS Service Tags, select the region, cluster, and the tag associated with the service. Once you create a rule using this option, the rule is applied automatically to the most recently created ECS service using the tag.
      • Select the region where your cluster is hosted from the Select Region dropdown list.
      • Select your cluster from the Select Cluster dropdown list.
      • Select the tag key and the tag value from the dropdown lists. If you want to learn how to add tags to your service, go to Tagging your Amazon ECS Resources.

  5. Specify Desired Task Count: In Desired Task Count, specify the desired task count for the selected ECS service. This is the number of tasks that Harness will instantiate when your service is up and running. For more information, see Amazon ECS service quotas.

  6. Set up Advanced Configuration:

    • Hide Progress Page: This is especially useful when the service is invoked by an automation system, as it prevents misinterpretation of the progress page as the intended response from a service that is onboarded to AutoStopping.
    • Dry-Run: Toggle the button if you wish to evaluate this feature without terminating your cloud resources. For more information, go to Evaluate AutoStopping rules in dry-run mode.
    • Dependencies: Link your rule to other AutoStopping rules when resources depend on each other.
    • Fixed Schedules: Create fixed schedules to automatically start or stop your instances at specific times.
Click to expand advanced configuration details

(Optional) Set up advanced configuration​

In this step, you can configure the following settings:

Hide progress page​

Toggle the button to disable the display of progress page during instances' warming up process. This option is especially useful when the service is invoked by an automation system, as it prevents misinterpretation of the progress page as the intended response from a service that is onboarded to AutoStopping. By hiding the progress page, the first response of warming up a rule after a downtime will be delayed until the intended service is up and running.

Dry Run​

Toggle the button if you wish to evaluate this feature without terminating your cloud resources.

Add Dependency​

Set dependencies between two or more AutoStopping Rules when you want one Rule to make one or more Rules to be active based on the traffic that it receives. For example for an application server dependent on a database server, create two AutoStopping Rules managing both the servers. Add a dependency on the Rule managing the application server to be dependent on the Rule managing the database server.

  1. Click add dependency to add a dependency on any existing rule.
  2. Select the rule from the RULES drop-down list.
  3. In DELAY IN SECS, enter the number of seconds that rule should wait after warming up the dependent rule. For example, you have Rule 1 dependent on Rule 2 and you have set 5 seconds delay. In that case, when the request is received to warm up Rule 1, then first Rule 2 (dependent rule) is warmed up, and then there is a delay of 5 seconds before warming up Rule 1.
  4. Once you're done with all the configurations, click Next.

Fixed Schedule​

Create fixed uptime or downtime schedules for the resources managed by this AutoStopping Rule. When a resource is configured to go up or down on a fixed schedule, it is unaffected by activity or idleness during that time period.

In certain scenarios, you would not want your resources to go down or up. For example, every Friday at 5 p.m. you want your ABC resource to go down. You can schedule downtime for your ABC resource. During this window, the resource is forced to go down regardless of the defined rule. You can choose to specify uptime for your resources in the same way.

note

The fixed schedule takes precedence over the defined AutoStopping Rule.

note

Harness executes scheduled rules using Dkron, an open-source workload automation service.

To create a fixed schedule for your rule, do the following:

  1. In Fixed Schedules, click Add Fixed Schedule.
  2. In New Fixed Schedule, enter a Name for your schedule.
  3. In Type, select the type for your schedule. You can schedule an Uptime or Downtime for your rule. As per your schedule, the resources go up or down.
  4. Select the Time Zone from the drop-down list.
  5. In Set schedule period, use the date picker to set the start and end time for your schedule.
    1. In Begins on, select the start date and time for your schedule. You can select a date and specify the time.
    2. In Ends on, select the end date and time for your schedule. You can select a date and specify the time. Ensure that Never ends checkbox is unselected to set the end time.
    If you don't specify an end time, the schedule continues to run until you manually update the settings or remove the schedule.
  6. Select the checbox Never ends if you do not want to set end time for your schedule.
  7. You can also set a recurring schedule for the rule. If you want to set a recurring schedule, in Uptime/Downtime in the selected period, in Repeats, select the repeat frequency.
    1. Select which days of the week you'd like your schedule to repeat. You can choose any day between Sunday and Saturday.
    2. Select Everyday, to set the schedule for all seven days of the week.
    3. Set your repeat schedule's beginning and ending time. In the Time field, specify the start and end time for the fixed schedule.
    4. Select All Day, if you wish to set your schedule for the entire day. If you choose All Day for your schedule, you won't be able to choose a start and end time.