Alibaba Cloud Certified Associate (ACA) 2025 – 400 Free Practice Questions to Pass the Exam

Choosing ECI (Elastic Container Instance) over ECS (Elastic Compute Service) is often preferred when factors like cost and quick deployment speed are crucial. ECI is designed for running containers without the overhead of managing the underlying virtual machines. This allows for a more efficient use of resources, as you pay only for the resources you consume during the time your applications are running.

The quick startup time is particularly beneficial for applications with unpredictable workloads or those requiring rapid scaling, as ECI enables faster deployment of containerized applications compared to the more traditional approach with ECS. This can lead to significant operational cost savings, especially in scenarios where applications have varying usage patterns and need to be spun up or down frequently.

Additionally, ECI abstracts the complexity of underlying infrastructure management, allowing developers to focus on application development and deployment rather than worrying about configurations and maintenance associated with virtual machines. This makes ECI an attractive choice for scenarios where agility and cost efficiency are priorities.