Handson Microservice-XRay-AppMesh

1 - Setup Microservice

• start with productapp and paymentapp taskdefinition

cd 1-Setup
aws ecs register-task-definition  --cli-input-json file://td-productapp-setup.json --region us-west-2
aws ecs register-task-definition  --cli-input-json file://td-paymentapp-setup.json --region us-west-2
aws ecs register-task-definition  --cli-input-json file://td-frontendapp.json --region us-west-2

• create ECS service for both, productapp and paymentapp both without public URL assignment and without LB
• grab URLs (host:port) of both services and set it in the td-frontendapp.json taskdefinition, environment variables
• create taskdefinition for frontendappapp (the frontend)

aws ecs register-task-definition  --cli-input-json file://td-frontendapp-setup.json --region us-west-2

• create frontendapp service
• grab public URL of frontendapp ALB Url and make some requests

2 - Adding tracing with AWS XRay and logging with AWS CloudWatch

Extend role ecsTaskRole by attaching policy AWSXRayDaemonWriteAccess

Updating the task definitions to add xray-daemon sidecar container and additional env properties.

cd 2-Tracing-Logging
aws ecs register-task-definition  --cli-input-json file://td-productapp-tracing.json --region us-west-2
aws ecs register-task-definition  --cli-input-json file://td-paymentapp-tracing.json --region us-west-2
aws ecs register-task-definition  --cli-input-json file://td-frontendapp-tracing.json --region us-west-2

Ensure to update the final IP addresses of the product- / payment-app within the frontendapp taskdefinition, section environment variables

To apply all the changes, redeploy the corresponding ECS service and select the latest revision of the task definition.

3 - Adding service discovery

changes to our setup

• productapp and paymentapp PORT 80, instead of 9001/9002
• adjust security groups "productsvc" and "paymentsvc" to allow port 80
• adjust frontendapp task definition to replace the product_HOST and payment_HOST env variables by the DNS names of the corresponding services, productsvc.ecs-course.local and paymentsvc.ecs-course.local
• apply the changed task definitions
• delete existing services for product- , and paymentsvc
• recreate service for product- , and paymentsvc including service discovery
• redeploy the frontendapp service with latest revision

Service discovery details

• namespace: ecs-course.local
• service discovery services: productsvc and paymentsvc

apply task definitions

cd 3-ServiceDiscovery
aws ecs register-task-definition  --cli-input-json file://td-productapp-servicediscovery.json --region us-west-2
aws ecs register-task-definition  --cli-input-json file://td-paymentapp-servicediscovery.json --region us-west-2
aws ecs register-task-definition  --cli-input-json file://td-frontendapp-servicediscovery.json --region us-west-2

4 - Adding AppMesh

extend TaskExecutionRole

attach policy AWSAppMeshEnvoyAccess

create AppMesh resources

• open AWS mgm console, AppMesh service
• click Create Mesh
• provide name frontendapp-mesh and click button Create mesh
• create AppMesh components

aws cloudformation create-stack --stack-name appmesh-resources --template-body file://./mesh-resources.yaml

adjust ECS services

frontendapp service

Taskdefinition

• change to networking mode awsvpc and launchtype FARGATE
• ensure env variables for product and payment hosts match their service discovery names product-service.ecs-course.local and payment-service.ecs-course.local
• delete environment variable AWS_XRAY_DAEMON_ADDRESS
• delete Links entry xray-daemon (this is no longer required in network mode awsvpc)
• enable AppMesh integration by clicking checkbox Enable App Mesh integration
  • select frontendapp as application container name
  • select frontendapp-mesh as Mesh name
  • select frontendapp-service-vn as Virtual node name
  • click Apply !
  • click Confirm
• in Container definitions, open the envoy container
  • add environment variable ENABLE_ENVOY_XRAY_TRACING with value 1
  • enable Cloudwatch logging
• click on Create to create the new task definition revision

ECS service

• delete existing ECS service frontendappsvc
• delete listener 9000 in ALB
• create new service
  • add to loadbalancer, new listener port 9000, new target group frontendappsvc
  • click Enable service discovery integration
  • select the existing namespace ecs-course.local
  • create new service discovery service frontendapp-service

product service

Taskdefinition

• move to Fargate launchtype (to avoid the limitation of ENIs on our t2.small EC2 instance) by switching from EC2 to Fargate in Requires compatibilities
• set Task memory to 1GB
• set Task CPU to 0.5vCPU
• enable AppMesh integration by clicking checkbox Enable App Mesh integration
  • select productapp as application container name
  • select frontendapp-mesh as Mesh name
  • select product-service-vn as Virtual node name
  • click Apply !
  • click Confirm
• in Container definitions, open the envoy container
  • add environment variable ENABLE_ENVOY_XRAY_TRACING with value 1
  • enable Cloudwatch logging
• click on Create to create the new task definition revision

ECS service

• recreate ECS service
• create new security group, open port 80 from everywhere
• click Enable service discovery integration
  • select existing namespace
  • select existing service discovery service
  • select product-service
• click Next step
• click Next step
• click Create service

payment service

Taskdefinition

• enable AppMesh integration by clicking checkbox Enable App Mesh integration
  • select paymentapp as application container name
  • select frontendapp-mesh as Mesh name
  • select payment-service-vn as Virtual node name
  • click Apply !
  • click Confirm
• in Container definitions, open the envoy container
  • add environment variable ENABLE_ENVOY_XRAY_TRACING with value 1
  • enable Cloudwatch logging
• click on Create to create the new task definition revision

apply task definitions

cd 4-AppMesh
aws ecs register-task-definition  --cli-input-json file://td-productapp-appmesh.json --region us-west-2
aws ecs register-task-definition  --cli-input-json file://td-paymentapp-appmesh.json --region us-west-2
aws ecs register-task-definition  --cli-input-json file://td-frontendapp-appmesh.json --region us-west-2

export CORE_STACK_NAME="ecs-course-core-infrastructure"

ecs-cli up
--subnets subnet-06620e92772d7d0bc, subnet-0558b5109de70d1b3
--vpc vpc-0aad0e33a58c19a14
--launch-type EC2
--size 1 --instance-type t2.small
--cluster ecs-ec2