Having evaluated both approaches extensively in production environments, I can share concrete insights. Elastic Beanstalk (EB) provides an abstraction layer over AWS infrastructure that handles:

// Sample EB CLI deployment workflow
eb init -p tomcat my-app
eb create my-app-env --database --database.username admin --database.password secret
eb deploy

For teams prioritizing developer velocity, EB delivers exceptional value:

• Infrastructure as Code: .ebextensions configurations allow customization:

  option_settings:
    aws:elasticbeanstalk:application:environment:
      SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE: "prod"
    aws:elasticbeanstalk:container:tomcat:jvmoptions:
      Xms: 2048m

• Blue-Green Deployments: Native support through environment swapping

During a recent microservices migration, we hit several EB constraints:

// Problematic scenario for service discovery
services:
  user-service:
    depends_on:
      - auth-service
      - payment-service
# EB doesn't natively manage inter-service dependencies

For complex SOA implementations, we've found success with:

# Terraform + Packer workflow example
packer build -var 'service_version=1.2.3' app-image.json
terraform apply -var 'ami_id=ami-123456'

Consider this evaluation matrix we use internally:

One fintech client achieved optimal balance by:

# Jenkins pipeline snippet
pipeline {
  stages {
    stage('Deploy Core Services') {
      steps {
        sh 'eb deploy production-core'
      }
    }
    stage('Deploy Edge Services') {
      steps {
        sh 'terraform apply -auto-approve'
      }
    }
  }
}

When evaluating AWS Elastic Beanstalk against custom deployment pipelines (like Jenkins/Asgard/AMI baking), we need to examine several technical dimensions:

# Sample Elastic Beanstalk CLI deployment
eb init -p tomcat my-app
eb create my-app-env --database --database.engine postgres
eb deploy

• Rapid Deployment: Single-command deploys for WAR/JAR files with auto-scaling
• Managed Infrastructure: AWS handles OS patches, load balancing, and capacity provisioning
• Environment Templates: Reusable configurations via .ebextensions:

# .ebextensions/security.config
Resources:
  sslSecurityGroupIngress:
    Type: AWS::EC2::SecurityGroupIngress
    Properties:
      GroupId: {"Ref" : "AWSEBSecurityGroup"}
      IpProtocol: tcp
      FromPort: 443
      ToPort: 443
      CidrIp: 0.0.0.0/0

While Elastic Beanstalk simplifies monolithic apps, service-oriented architectures face challenges:

{
  "service-dependencies": {
    "payment-service": {
      "endpoint": "http://payment.internal",
      "health-check": "/status"
    },
    "inventory-service": {
      "endpoint": "http://inventory.internal",
      "circuit-breaker": true
    }
  }
}

For complex microservices, a Jenkins/AMI approach provides:

• Fine-grained service discovery control
• Custom health check integration
• Mixed-language deployment pipelines

// Jenkinsfile example for multi-service deploy
pipeline {
  stages {
    stage('Build AMIs') {
      parallel {
        stage('User Service') {
          steps { sh './package-user-service.sh' }
        }
        stage('Cart Service') {
          steps { sh './package-cart-service.sh' }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Consider EB when:

• You have standardized web apps (Java/Tomcat, Node.js, etc.)
• Need quick prototyping without infrastructure expertise
• Want AWS-managed rolling deployments

For those committed to EB with microservices:

# Service discovery helper for EB environments
import boto3

def get_service_endpoint(service_name):
    client = boto3.client('elasticbeanstalk')
    envs = client.describe_environments()['Environments']
    return next(
        (e['CNAME'] for e in envs 
         if e['ApplicationName'] == service_name),
        None
    )

EB provides basic CloudWatch metrics, but custom solutions offer deeper insights:

# Terraform snippet for enhanced monitoring
resource "aws_cloudwatch_dashboard" "microservices" {
  dashboard_name = "SOA-Metrics"
  
  dashboard_body = jsonencode({
    widgets = [
      {
        type   = "metric"
        x      = 0
        y      = 0
        width  = 12
        height = 6
        properties = {
          metrics = [
            ["AWS/ElasticBeanstalk", "RequestCount", "EnvironmentName", "prod"]
          ]
          period = 300
          stat   = "Sum"
        }
      }
    ]
  })
}