Help Center/ Cloud Container Engine/ FAQs/ Related Services/ What Are the Differences Between CCE and CCI?
Updated on 2024-07-04 GMT+08:00

What Are the Differences Between CCE and CCI?

Description

Table 1 Introduction to CCE and CCI

Cloud Container Engine (CCE)

Cloud Container Instance (CCI)

CCE provides highly scalable, high-performance, enterprise-class Kubernetes clusters and supports Docker containers. CCE is a one-stop container platform that provides full-stack container services from Kubernetes cluster management, lifecycle management of containerized applications, application service mesh, and Helm charts to add-on management, application scheduling, and monitoring and O&M. With CCE, you can easily deploy, manage, and scale containerized applications on Huawei Cloud.

For details, see What Is Cloud Container Engine?

Cloud Container Instance (CCI) is a serverless container engine that allows you to run containers without creating or managing server clusters. With CCI, you only need to manage containerized services running on Kubernetes. You can quickly create and run container workloads on CCI without managing clusters and servers. Because of the serverless architecture, CCI frees you from containerized application O&M and allows you to focus on the services themselves.

With the serverless architecture, you can focus on building and operating applications without having to create or manage servers, not to mention the issues caused by abnormal server running. All you have to do is to specify resource requirements (on CPU and memory, for example). This gives you a more focused approach to business needs and helps you reduce management and maintenance costs. Traditionally, to run containerized workloads using Kubernetes, you need to create a Kubernetes cluster first.

Creation Mode

Table 2 Creation modes

Cloud Container Engine (CCE)

Cloud Container Instance (CCI)

CCE is a hosted Kubernetes service for container management. It allows you to create native Kubernetes clusters with just a few clicks.

You need to create clusters and nodes to use CCE. They are easy to create on an intuitive console and highly available. You do not need to manage master nodes.

CCI provides a serverless container engine. When deploying containers on Huawei Cloud, you do not need to purchase and manage ECSs, eliminating the need for O&M and management.

You do not need to create clusters, master nodes, or work nodes, but directly start applications.

Billing

Table 3 Different billing modes

Aspect

Cloud Container Engine (CCE)

Cloud Container Instance (CCI)

Pricing

Related resources (such as nodes and bandwidth) will be created when CCE is used. You need to pay for these resources.

CCI instance resources include CPUs, memory, and GPUs. You will be billed by the actual instance resource specifications.

Billing mode

Pay-per-use and yearly/monthly billing modes are supported.

Pay-per-use billing mode is supported.

Minimum pricing unit

By hour

Billed by second. The bill run period is hour.

Application Scenarios

Table 4 Different application scenarios

Cloud Container Engine (CCE)

Cloud Container Instance (CCI)

Applicable to all scenarios. Generally, large-scale and long-term stable applications are running. For example:

  • E-commerce
  • Service mid-end
  • IT system

Applicable to scenarios with obvious peak and off-peak hours. Resources can be flexibly requested to improve resource utilization. For example:

  • Batch computing
  • High-performance computing
  • Scale-out upon traffic bursts
  • CI/CD test

Cluster Creation

Table 5 Creation modes

Cloud Container Engine (CCE)

Cloud Container Instance (CCI)

Process of using CCE:

  1. Creating a cluster

    Configure basic information such as the name, region, and network.

  2. Creating a node

    Specify the node specifications and data disk size.

  3. Configuring the cluster

    Install cluster add-ons, such as networking, monitoring, and logs.

  4. Creating a workload in the cluster

Process of using CCI:

  1. Creating a namespace

    Configure basic information such as the name, region, and network.

  2. Creating a workload

Cooperation Between CCE and CCI

By installing the virtual-kubelet add-on, you can use CCI to deploy pods for your Deployments, StatefulSets, and jobs on CCE when service spikes occur, which can reduce consumption caused by cluster scaling.

Functions:

  • Creates pods automatically in seconds. When CCE cluster resources are insufficient, you do not need to add nodes to the cluster. virtual-kubelet automatically creates pods on CCI, eliminating the overhead of resizing the CCE cluster.
  • Seamlessly works with Huawei Cloud SWR for you to use public and private images.
  • Supports event synchronization, monitoring, logging, remote command execution, and status query for CCI pods.
  • Allows you to view the capacity information about virtual elastic nodes.
  • Supports connectivity between CCE and CCI pods through Services.

For details, see Elastic Scaling of CCE Pods to CCI.