An Elastic Compute Service (ECS) cluster is an environment where you deploy your applications in the Enterprise Distributed Application Service (EDAS) console. If you have multiple applications that have extremely high requirements on the performance and stability of individual instances, you can host your applications in ECS clusters in the EDAS console.
Cluster types
EDAS supports two types of ECS clusters. Choose the type that matches your infrastructure:
| Type | Infrastructure | Use when |
|---|---|---|
| Alibaba Cloud | ECS instances on Alibaba Cloud | All your instances run on Alibaba Cloud. |
| Non-Alibaba Cloud (hybrid cloud) | ECS instances from Alibaba Cloud, on-premises data centers, and other cloud providers, connected through Express Connect circuits | You manage instances across multiple environments and need a single cluster to unify them. See Create a hybrid cloud ECS cluster. |
This topic describes how to create an Alibaba Cloud ECS cluster.
Prerequisites
Before you begin, make sure that you have:
(Conditional) A Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), if you plan to use VPC as the network type. See Create a VPC with an IPv4 CIDR block
(Optional) A microservices namespace, if you need resource or service isolation. See Manage microservices namespaces in the EDAS console
Create the cluster
Log on to the EDAS console.
In the left-side navigation pane, choose Resource Management > ECS Clusters.
On the ECS Clusters page, select a region in the top navigation bar.
Select a microservices namespace from the Microservices Namespace drop-down list:
To isolate resources or services, select the namespace that you created.
If isolation is not required, select Default.
Click Create Cluster.
In the Create Cluster dialog box, configure the following parameters, and then click Create.
Parameter Description Cluster Name Enter a name. The name must be 1 to 64 characters in length and can contain letters, digits, underscores (\_), and periods (.). Cluster Select Alibaba Cloud for a standard ECS cluster, or Non-Alibaba Cloud for a hybrid cloud ECS cluster. Cluster Type Fixed to ECS. Network Type Select Classic Network or VPC. If you set Cluster to Non-Alibaba Cloud, only VPC is available. VPC After you select VPC for Network Type, select a created VPC. Microservices Namespace Defaults to the namespace selected on the ECS Clusters page. If no microservices namespace is selected, Default is displayed. You can change it here based on your business requirements. Resource Groups Select a resource group created by the current Alibaba Cloud account in the Resource Management console. This is an Alibaba Cloud resource group, not an EDAS resource group. If no resource groups are available, click Create Resource Group to go to the Resource Management console and create one. See Create a resource group. 
Result
After the cluster is created, the Created message appears at the top of the page and the cluster is listed on the ECS Clusters page.
What to do next
A newly created cluster contains no ECS instances. To deploy applications, add instances to the cluster first. See Scale out an ECS cluster in the EDAS console.