is it possible for ECS or EKS in GovCloud to access/consume images from an ECR registry in commercial region?

Accessing Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR) images across different AWS partitions, such as from AWS GovCloud to a commercial AWS region, is generally not feasible due to the strict isolation and compliance requirements inherent to AWS GovCloud. This isolation ensures that resources and data within GovCloud remain separate from commercial regions to meet regulatory standards.

Key Considerations:

Partition Isolation: AWS GovCloud operates in a distinct partition from commercial AWS regions. Services like Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) and Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) within GovCloud are designed to interact with resources in the same partition. Attempting to pull container images from an ECR repository in a commercial region would breach this partition boundary, which is restricted to maintain compliance.

Compliance Requirements: The separation between GovCloud and commercial regions is mandated to adhere to various government compliance frameworks. Allowing cross-partition access could compromise the stringent security and compliance posture that GovCloud is intended to provide.

Recommended Approach:

To deploy containerized applications in AWS GovCloud , it's advisable to host your container images within an ECR repository located in the same GovCloud region. This ensures compliance with data sovereignty and security requirements. You can achieve this by:

Building and Pushing Images Directly in GovCloud: Develop your container images within the GovCloud environment and push them to an ECR repository in the same region.

Transferring Images from Commercial Regions: If your images are initially built in a commercial region, you can transfer them to GovCloud by:

Downloading the Image Locally: Pull the image from the commercial ECR to a local environment. Uploading to GovCloud ECR: Push the image from your local environment to the ECR repository in GovCloud. This method maintains the necessary isolation between partitions while allowing you to utilize your container images within the GovCloud environment.

By adhering to these practices, you can ensure that your use of ECS or EKS in AWS GovCloud (US) remains compliant with AWS's security and regulatory standards.