AWS Containerized Deployment

Deploy agents to AWS ECS Fargate for consistent, low-latency execution.

Architecture

Prerequisites

• Docker installed
• AWS CLI configured
• ECR repository created
• Agent Kernel with AWS extras

Deployment

Refer to example ECS implementation which leverages Agent Kernel's terraform module for ECS deployment.

Advantages

• No cold starts - containers always warm
• Consistent performance - predictable latency
• Better for high traffic - efficient resource usage
• Full control - customize container, resources, etc.

Session Storage

For containerized deployments, use Redis or DynamoDB for session persistence:

ElastiCache Redis (Traditional Approach)

export AK_SESSION__TYPE=redis
export AK_SESSION__REDIS__URL=redis://elasticache-endpoint:6379

Benefits:

• High performance
• Low latency
• In-memory speed
• Shared cache across tasks

Use when:

• You need sub-millisecond latency
• High throughput requirements
• Already using Redis infrastructure

DynamoDB (Serverless Option)

export AK_SESSION__TYPE=dynamodb
export AK_SESSION__DYNAMODB__TABLE_NAME=agent-kernel-sessions
export AK_SESSION__DYNAMODB__TTL=3600  # 1 hour

Benefits:

• Fully managed, serverless
• Auto-scaling
• No infrastructure to maintain
• Pay-per-use pricing
• No VPC complexity

Use when:

• You want serverless infrastructure
• Moderate latency is acceptable (single-digit milliseconds)
• Simplified infrastructure management
• AWS-native integration preferred

Requirements:

• DynamoDB table with partition key session_id (String) and sort key key (String)
• ECS Task IAM role with DynamoDB permissions
• The Terraform module automatically creates the table and configures permissions when create_dynamodb_memory_table = true

Monitoring

Use CloudWatch Container Insights:

• CPU/Memory utilization
• Task count
• Network metrics
• Application logs

Health Checks

Agent Kernel provides a health endpoint:

# Automatically available at /health
# Returns 200 OK if healthy

Application Endpoints

Users can expose their own API endpoints alongside the Agent Kernel endpoints without having to do any custom implementation. Refer to example.

Best Practices

• Use at least 2 tasks for high availability
• Configure auto-scaling based on traffic
• Use Redis for session persistence when latency is critical
• Use DynamoDB for session persistence for serverless-style infrastructure
• Enable Container Insights for monitoring
• Set up log aggregation
• Use secrets manager for API keys

Example Deployment

See examples/aws-containerized