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Comment by krishadi | Hacker News Reader

I am looking for a service that helps me orchestrate the deployments of docker containers in AWS. These containers run Python workloads, but are not web-api endpoints. I want to be able to deploy them programmatically and, pause them if they've been idle (something like what supabase does). Is this something you are looking to provide?

From a quick glance at your docs, it seems that you are mainly focussing on web facing applications.

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This is something we support as well. You're correct that most of our documentation (including quickstarts) focuses primarily on web-facing apps.

Our current modules support running Python jobs using Fargate/ECS and Lambda (using Docker containers or packaged zip files).

Today, it is possible to pause workloads by destroying the app (nullstone down --app=<app>). Obviously, that's not ideal and we do have plans to support pausing workloads to reduce costs.

Gotcha, do you also provide functions to build and store docker images from a code repo?

We support auto build/deploy upon the launch of your application and then on every code commit to the branch configured. The docker image is stored in a container registry in your cloud account.

Outside of the auto build/deploy process, we don't yet support ad-hoc docker builds.

Check out AWS Copilot CLI: https://aws.github.io/copilot-cli/

This is by far the best way to deploy compute into AWS in containerized workloads.

The abstraction you want is Jobs: https://aws.github.io/copilot-cli/docs/concepts/jobs/

Building this any other way on AWS would require provisioning multiple artifacts. The Copilot Jobs abstraction basically encapsulates the provisioning of those artifacts into one repeatable pattern.

Fully extensible with CDK and CF if the out-of-the-box workload abstractions aren't enough or you need deeper customization. I have found that the OOB abstractions are "right-sized" for most common workloads and rarely require extension aside from occasionally IAM when integrating with other AWS services.

AWS Copilot has been great for deploying `services`. But I wasn't sure if the `jobs` were what I was looking for, since they are event triggered. I'll test it our now.

Essentially I'd like to build a docker image of code from a repository, and deploy and run it, and manage its lifecycle. Perhaps I could copy the CF template from the Copilot to do the same.

> Essentially I'd like to build a docker image of code from a repository, and deploy and run it

Presumably, you're running it based on some input. Jobs are the right paradigm if this input is periodic (for example, processing a batch of items in S3 every few hours).

Otherwise, you may want to consider a Worker: https://aws.github.io/copilot-cli/docs/concepts/services/#wo... which can be connected to an SQS queue and activated by publishing messages to the queue.

Lifecycle management is a matter of using the delete commands:

    svc delete
    job delete
    env delete
    app delete

To de-provision.

https://aws.github.io/copilot-cli/docs/commands/app-delete/

Hope that helps!

Thanks a ton!

Nullstone does support this use case, all applications are private by default. In order to make them public, you would add a Load Balancer, CDN, or Api Gateway. In your case, just don't add this and your application will remain private.

We don't currently support the automatic pause of applications due to inactivity. However, we do support starting/stopping your app via the UI, API, or CLI.

Cool, could you point me a link to the API for deploying, starting, stopping the app?

We don't have our API documented yet but here is the documentation for the CLI. https://docs.nullstone.io/getting-started/cli/docs.html

To launch your application you would use the `nullstone up` command. To tear it down you would use the `nullstone down` command. To deploy your code, you would use the `nullstone launch`.

Each of these command are just making API calls under the hood. If you want to hop on our Slack channel, I'd be glad to share the details.

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