---
layout: docs
page_title: Consul Enterprise - AWS ECS
description: >-
  Consul Enterprise support for Consul on ECS.
---

# Consul Enterprise

Consul on ECS supports running Consul Enterprise by specifying the Consul Enterprise
Docker image in the Terraform module parameters.

## How To Use Consul Enterprise

When instantiating the [`mesh-task`](https://registry.terraform.io/modules/hashicorp/consul-ecs/aws/latest/submodules/mesh-task) module,
set the parameter `consul_image` to a Consul Enterprise image, e.g. `hashicorp/consul-enterprise:1.10.0-ent`:

```hcl
module "my_task" {
  source  = "hashicorp/consul-ecs/aws//modules/mesh-task"
  version = "<latest version>"

  consul_image = "hashicorp/consul-enterprise:<version>-ent"
  ...
}
```

## Licensing

~> **Warning:** Consul Enterprise is currently only fully supported when [ACLs are enabled](/docs/ecs/get-started/production-installation#deploy-acl-controller).

Consul Enterprise [requires a license](/docs/enterprise/license/overview). If running
Consul on ECS with [ACLs enabled](/docs/ecs/get-started/production-installation#deploy-acl-controller), the license
will be automatically pulled down from Consul servers.

Currently there is no capability for specifying the license when ACLs are disabled so if you wish to
run Consul Enterprise clients then you must enable ACLs.

## Running Open Source Consul Clients

Consul supports running Consul Enterprise servers with Consul OSS (Open Source) clients. Since
currently no Consul Enterprise features are supported that require Consul client support,
you can run Consul OSS clients with Consul Enterprise servers without issue.

## Feature Support

Consul on ECS does not currently support any Consul Enterprise features that require
support from Consul clients. That being said, there are many enterprise features that
are activated only on Consul servers and so Consul on ECS will run fine with those
features.

| Feature                           | Supported     | Description                                                                                                                                                             |
|-----------------------------------|---------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Automated Backups/Snapshot Agent  | Yes*          | Running the snapshot agent on ECS is not currently supported but you are able to run the snapshot agent alongside your Consul servers on VMs.                           |
| Automated Upgrades                | Yes (servers) | This feature runs on Consul servers.                                                                                                                                    |
| Enhanced Read Scalability         | Yes (servers) | This feature runs on Consul servers.                                                                                                                                    |
| Single Sign-On/OIDC               | Yes (servers) | This feature runs on Consul servers.                                                                                                                                    |
| Redundancy Zones                  | Yes (servers) | This feature runs on Consul servers.                                                                                                                                    |
| Advanced Federation/Network Areas | Yes (servers) | This feature runs on Consul servers.                                                                                                                                    |
| Sentinel                          | Yes (servers) | This feature runs on Consul servers.                                                                                                                                    |
| Network Segments                  | No            | Currently there is no capability to configure the network segment Consul clients on ECS run in.                                                                         |
| Namespaces                        | No            | Currently there is no capability to configure the Consul namespace for a service on ECS.                                                                                |
| Admin Partitions                  | No*           | Supported if Consul ECS clients run in the default partition. Otherwise there is currently no capability to configure the admin partition Consul clients in ECS run in. |
| Audit Logging                     | No*           | Audit logging can be enabled on Consul servers that run outside of ECS but is not currently supported on the Consul clients that run inside ECS.                        |

