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AWS Deployment Options

Spice.ai provides multiple deployment options on Amazon Web Services (AWS), allowing you to leverage AWS's robust infrastructure for your data and AI applications. Whether you prefer virtual machines, container orchestration, or managed services, you can deploy Spice.ai to meet your specific requirements for performance, scalability, and cost efficiency.

Benefits of Deploying on AWS​

Deployment Options​

Amazon EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service)​

Leverage Kubernetes orchestration with Amazon EKS for containerized Spice.ai deployments.

  1. Create an EKS Cluster:

  2. Deploy Spice.ai on EKS:

For comprehensive instructions and advanced configuration options, refer to the Amazon EKS User Guide, EKS Best Practices Guide, and Spice.ai Kubernetes Deployment Guide.

EC2 / AWS CloudFormation​

Deploy Spice.ai directly on Amazon EC2 instances for maximum control over the environment.

  1. Manual EC2 Deployment:

  2. Automated EC2 Deployment with CloudFormation:

For detailed guidance and best practices, refer to the AWS CloudFormation User Guide, EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances, and AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store Documentation.

Amazon ECS (Elastic Container Service)​

Deploy Spice.ai as containerized tasks on Amazon ECS for easy container management and flexible scaling.

  1. Create an ECS Cluster:

  2. Define a Task Definition:

  3. Deploy Spice.ai on ECS:

    • Create an ECS Service to run and manage Spice.ai tasks.
    • Set up load balancing with NLB.
    • (Optional) Configure auto-scaling based on resource usage or CloudWatch metrics.
    • (Optional) Use CI/CD pipelines for automated updates. Manage infrastructure with CloudFormation, Terraform, or the AWS CLI.

For more details, see the Amazon ECS Developer Guide and Spice.ai Docker Deployment Guide.

Authentication​

Most AWS services that Spice connects to have explicit parameters for configuring authentication (usually by setting an access_key_id and secret_access_key). If explicit credentials are not provided, Spice follows the standard AWS SDK behavior for loading credentials from the environment based on the following sources in order:

  1. Environment Variables:

    • AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
    • AWS_SESSION_TOKEN (if using temporary credentials)

  2. Shared AWS Config/Credentials Files:

    • Config file: ~/.aws/config (Linux/Mac) or %UserProfile%\.aws\config (Windows)

    • Credentials file: ~/.aws/credentials (Linux/Mac) or %UserProfile%\.aws\credentials (Windows)

    • The AWS_PROFILE environment variable can be used to specify a named profile, otherwise the [default] profile is used.

    • Supports both static credentials and SSO sessions

    • Example credentials file:

      # Static credentials
      [default]
      aws_access_key_id = YOUR_ACCESS_KEY
      aws_secret_access_key = YOUR_SECRET_KEY

      # SSO profile
      [profile sso-profile]
      sso_start_url = https://my-sso-portal.awsapps.com/start
      sso_region = us-west-2
      sso_account_id = 123456789012
      sso_role_name = MyRole
      region = us-west-2
    tip

    To set up SSO authentication:

    1. Run aws configure sso to configure a new SSO profile
    2. Use the profile by setting AWS_PROFILE=sso-profile
    3. Run aws sso login --profile sso-profile to start a new SSO session

  3. AWS STS Web Identity Token Credentials:

    • Used primarily with OpenID Connect (OIDC) and OAuth
    • Common in Kubernetes environments using IAM roles for service accounts (IRSA)

  4. ECS Container Credentials:

    • Used when running in Amazon ECS containers
    • Automatically uses the task's IAM role
    • Retrieved from the ECS credential provider endpoint
    • Relies on the environment variable AWS_CONTAINER_CREDENTIALS_RELATIVE_URI or AWS_CONTAINER_CREDENTIALS_FULL_URI which are automatically injected by ECS.

  5. AWS EC2 Instance Metadata Service (IMDSv2):

    • Used when running on EC2 instances.
    • Automatically uses the instance's IAM role.
    • Retrieved securely using IMDSv2.

The connector will try each source in order until valid credentials are found. If no valid credentials are found, an authentication error will be returned.

IAM Permissions

Regardless of the credential source, the IAM role or user must have appropriate permissions (e.g., s3:ListBucket, s3:GetObject) to access the service. If the Spicepod connects to multiple different AWS services, the permissions should cover all of them.

Learn More​