Difficulty: Medium
Description
We have identified ECS task definitions in your account running on the x86_64 architecture. Migrating eligible tasks to ARM64 (AWS Graviton) reduces Fargate vCPU and memory costs by 20% with no changes to application logic required, provided the container images support ARM64.
Selection Criteria
The ECS task definition uses x86_64 architecture.
Expected annualized savings exceed $10.
Expected Saving
ARM64 Fargate vCPU-Hours and GB-Hours are 20% cheaper than their x86_64 equivalents. Savings scale directly with the compute hours consumed by the service.
Operational Impact
Downtime: Deploying a new task definition revision with ARM64 triggers an ECS rolling update. No downtime for multi-task services; brief interruption for single-task services during the task replacement.
Recovery: The previous x86_64 task definition revision can be redeployed at any time with no data loss.
⚠️ Warning — Image compatibility: Not all container images have an ARM64 variant. Verify that all images in the task definition support ARM64 (multi-arch manifest or explicit arm64 tag) before updating the task definition.
⚠️ Warning — Native dependencies: Applications using x86-specific native binaries or compiled extensions may fail on ARM64. Full testing in a non-production environment is required before deploying to production.