Cloud Academy Team

AWS CodeCommit: Amazon Managed and Integrated SaaS Git

The Git-compatible AWS CodeCommit version control system is the next step in Amazon’s plan to stitch DevOps into the fabric of its core services.

One of the most basic collaboration tools in today’s development world is the version control system, git. Git is all about helping people work together on their code and is a major engine behind the growing power of open source software. Touch any open source  project, and it’s nearly certain that you’ll find its code shared somewhere in GitHub, the SaaS Git tool. So just what value does Amazon hope to add with their new service, AWS CodeCommit?

Here’s how they describe it:

AWS CodeCommit is a fully-managed source control service that makes it easy for companies to host secure and highly scalable private Git repositories. CodeCommit eliminates the need to operate your own source control system or worry about scaling its infrastructure. You can use CodeCommit to securely store anything from source code to binaries, and it works seamlessly with your existing Git tools.

In other words, AWS CodeCommit is a version control service, hosted by Amazon Web Services, that you can use to privately store and manage assets in the cloud and integrate with AWS services. The two key elements here are integration with other AWS services, and the security and reliability that comes with AWS management.

All you need to do is to create a CodeCommit repo and assign permissions, and your users can begin committing their code.

AWS CodeCommit: The benefits

Here, in a bit more detail, are some of the built-in benefits AWS CodeCommit offers over the obvious “competition.”

  • Managed Service: CodeCommit is fully managed, distributed, and fault-tolerant and carries no administrative overhead. It is elastic and, as mentioned, integrated with other AWS Services.
  • High Availability: Data is replicated across availability zones.
  • Store Anything: Not just source code, but documents and binary files, too. There is no limit to the size of a repo.
  • AWS Security: CodeCommit is integrated with AWS IAM. Data is encrypted at rest.
  • Git Compatible: Users can migrate their existing Git repositories.

AWS CodeCommit design(AWS CodeCommit design)

AWS CodeCommit essentials

Whether you’re considering switching your team to CodeCommit or building an entirely new repository, you’ll need to know about its essential coordinates. So just how compatible is it? Here are its available protocols:

  • HTTPS: Git uses the cryptographic version of a user’s IAM credentials during the authentication process. The user will need to set up the credential helper for Git in the AWS CLI or AWS’s .NET SDK.
  • SSH: Users need public and private keys (.pem & .ppk files) for handshaking during authentication. The private key is stored in local machine and the public key is used on the IAM side.

And here’s the latest run down on version compatibility:

  • Git: AWS CodeCommit supports Git v1.7.9 and higher.
  • CURL: You need Curl v7.33 and higher with CodeCommit.

AWS CodeCommit Commands

To configure CodeCommit, use the aws configure command. The command will prompt for your access_key, secret_key, region-name (the only option you’ll get right now is us-east-1) and output format (JSON).

CodeCommit commands should, in general, be strongly reminiscent of Git.

aws codecommit help

A create-branch command has the following options:

create-branch
    --repository-name <value>
    --branch-name <value>
    --commit-id <value>
    [--cli-input-json <value>]
    [--generate-cli-skeleton]

Here’s the create-repository command:

create-repository
    --repository-name <value>
    [--repository-description <value>]
    [--cli-input-json <value>]
    [--generate-cli-skeleton]

…and delete-repository:

delete-repository
    --repository-name <value>
    [--cli-input-json <value>]
    [--generate-cli-skeleton]

Note: Deleting a repository also deletes all associated objects and their metadata. After a repository is deleted, all future push calls to the deleted repository will fail.

AWS CodeCommit limits

Everything has its limits, and CodeCommit is no different. Just how far can you stretch your account?

  • CodeCommit is available only in Virginia (us-east-1) region.
  • A single file in a repository cannot be more than two GB in size.
  • An individual commit object, tag, or tree cannot exceed six MB.
  • You can have maximum of 1000 repositories per AWS account.CodeCommit is available only in the Northern Virginia region.

AWS CodeCommit pricing

AWS CodeCommit users eligible for the free tier can have five active users, 50 GB per month of storage, and 10,000 Git requests per month for free. Right now, this rate is available to both new and existing customers. Beyond that, AWS CodeCommit costs $1 per active user per month, which comes with ten GB per month of storage and 2,000 Git requests. Additional storage will be charged at $0.06 per GB-month and $0.001 per Git request.

Conclusion

Amazon is making a real push to provide a full range of integrated DevOps services to users and organizations. Their goal seems to be to create a complete development and deployment ecosystem that requires no help from third-party software vendors. To maintain its significant dominance in the public cloud, Amazon is doing a great job stitching DevOps tools into the fabric of its core services.

If you’re interested to learn more on AWS CodeCommit and ensure you know where and when to use it within your own software projects, I recommend the Cloud Academy’s <a href=”https://cloudacademy.com/course/aws-codecommit/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Introduction to AWS CodeCommit Course</a>.

Watch this short video taken from the course itself.

I also recommend the AWS Developer Fundamentals course for additional background.

Have you had the chance to compare GitHub to AWS CodeCommit? Tell us what you think.

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