Category: amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services – Amazon S3 ”; Previous Next Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is a scalable, high-speed, low-cost web-based service designed for online backup and archiving of data and application programs. It allows to upload, store, and download any type of files up to 5 TB in size. This service allows the subscribers to access the same systems that Amazon uses to run its own web sites. The subscriber has control over the accessibility of data, i.e. privately/publicly accessible. How to Configure S3? Following are the steps to configure a S3 account. Step 1 − Open the Amazon S3 console using this link − https://console.aws.amazon.com/s3/home Step 2 − Create a Bucket using the following steps. A prompt window will open. Click the Create Bucket button at the bottom of the page. Create a Bucket dialog box will open. Fill the required details and click the Create button. The bucket is created successfully in Amazon S3. The console displays the list of buckets and its properties. Select the Static Website Hosting option. Click the radio button Enable website hosting and fill the required details. Step 3 − Add an Object to a bucket using the following steps. Open the Amazon S3 console using the following link − https://console.aws.amazon.com/s3/home Click the Upload button. Click the Add files option. Select those files which are to be uploaded from the system and then click the Open button. Click the start upload button. The files will get uploaded into the bucket. To open/download an object − In the Amazon S3 console, in the Objects & Folders list, right-click on the object to be opened/downloaded. Then, select the required object. How to Move S3 Objects? Following are the steps to move S3 objects. step 1 − Open Amazon S3 console. step 2 − Select the files & folders option in the panel. Right-click on the object that is to be moved and click the Cut option. step 3 − Open the location where we want this object. Right-click on the folder/bucket where the object is to be moved and click the Paste into option. How to Delete an Object? Step 1 − Open Amazon S3. Step 2 − Select the files & folders option in the panel. Right-click on the object that is to be deleted. Select the delete option. Step 3 − A pop-up window will open for confirmation. Click Ok. How to Empty a Bucket? Step 1 − Open Amazon S3 console. Step 2 − Right-click on the bucket that is to be emptied and click the empty bucket option. Step 3 − A confirmation message will appear on the pop-up window. Read it carefully and click the Empty bucket button to confirm. Amazon S3 Features Low cost and Easy to Use − Using Amazon S3, the user can store a large amount of data at very low charges. Secure − Amazon S3 supports data transfer over SSL and the data gets encrypted automatically once it is uploaded. The user has complete control over their data by configuring bucket policies using AWS IAM. Scalable − Using Amazon S3, there need not be any worry about storage concerns. We can store as much data as we have and access it anytime. Higher performance − Amazon S3 is integrated with Amazon CloudFront, that distributes content to the end users with low latency and provides high data transfer speeds without any minimum usage commitments. Integrated with AWS services − Amazon S3 integrated with AWS services include Amazon CloudFront, Amazon CLoudWatch, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon RDS, Amazon Route 53, Amazon VPC, AWS Lambda, Amazon EBS, Amazon Dynamo DB, etc. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Amazon Web Services – Console Mobile App ”; Previous Next The AWS Console mobile app, provided by Amazon Web Services, allows its users to view resources for select services and also supports a limited set of management functions for select resource types. Following are the various services and supported functions that can be accessed using the mobile app. EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) Browse, filter and search instances. View configuration details. Check status of CloudWatch metrics and alarms. Perform operations over instances like start, stop, reboot, termination. Manage security group rules. Manage Elastic IP Addresses. View block devices. Elastic Load Balancing Browse, filter and search load balancers. View configuration details of attached instances. Add and remove instances from load balancers. S3 Browse buckets and view their properties. View properties of objects. Route 53 Browse and view hosted zones. Browse and view details of record sets. RDS (Relational Database Service) Browse, filter, search and reboot instances. View configuration details, security and network settings. Auto Scaling View group details, policies, metrics and alarms. Manage the number of instances as per the situation. Elastic Beanstalk View applications and events. View environment configuration and swap environment CNAMEs. Restart app servers. DynamoDB View tables and their details like metrics, index, alarms, etc. CloudFormation View stack status, tags, parameters, output, events, and resources. OpsWorks View configuration details of stack, layers, instances and applications. View instances, its logs, and reboot them. CloudWatch View CloudWatch graphs of resources. List CloudWatch alarms by status and time. Action configurations for alarms. Services Dashboard Provides information of available services and their status. All information related to the billing of the user. Switch the users to see the resources in multiple accounts. Features of AWS Mobile App To have access to the AWS Mobile App, we must have an existing AWS account. Simply create an identity using the account credentials and select the region in the menu. This app allows us to stay signed in to multiple identities at the same time. For security reasons, it is recommended to secure the device with a passcode and to use an IAM user”s credentials to log in to the app. In case the device is lost, then the IAM user can be deactivated to prevent unauthorized access. Root accounts cannot be deactivated via mobile console. While using AWS Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), it is recommended to use either a hardware MFA device or a virtual MFA on a separate mobile device for account security reasons. The latest version is 1.14. There is a feedback link in the App”s menu to share our experiences and for any queries. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

AWS – Relational Database Service ”; Previous Next Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service) is a fully-managed SQL database cloud service that allows to create and operate relational databases. Using RDS you can access your files and database anywhere in a cost-effective and highly scalable way. Features of Amazon RDS Amazon RDS has the following features − Scalable − Amazon RDS allows to scale the relational database by using AWS Management Console or RDS-specific API. We can increase or decrease your RDS requirements within minutes. Host replacement − Sometimes these situations occur when the hardware of Amazon RDS fails. There is no need to worry, it will be automatically replaced by Amazon. Inexpensive − Using Amazon RDS, we pay only for the resources we consume. There is no up-front and long-term commitment. Secure − Amazon RDS provides complete control over the network to access their database and their associated services. Automatic backups − Amazon RDS backs up everything in the database including transaction logs up to last five minutes and also manages automatic backup timings. Software patching − Automatically gets all the latest patches for the database software. We can also specify when the software should be patched using DB Engine Version Management. How to Set Up Amazon RDS? Step 1 − Login to AWS management console. Use the following link to open Amazon RDS console − https://console.aws.amazon.com/rds/ Step 2 − Select the region where the DB instance is to be created, at the top right corner of the Amazon RDS console. Step 3 − Select Instances in the navigation pane, then click Launch DB Instance button. Step 4 − The Launch DB Instance Wizard opens. Select the type of instance as required to launch and click the Select button. Step 5 − On the Specify DB Details page, provide the required details and click the Continue button. Step 6 − On the Additional configuration page, provide the additional information required to launch the MySQL DB instance and click the Continue button. Step 7 − On Management options page, make the choices and click the Continue button. Step 8 − On the Review page, verify the details and click the Launch DB Instance button. Now DB instance shows in the list of DB instances. How to Connect Database to MySQL DB Instance? Following are the steps to connect a database on MySQL DB instance − Step 1 − Type the following command in the command prompt on a client computer to connect a database on MySQL DB instance (using the MySQL monitor). Step 2 − Replace <myDBI> with DNS name of your DB instance, <myusername> with your master user-name & <mypassword> with your master password. PROMPT> mysql -h <myDBI> -P 3306 -u <myusername> -p After running the above command, the output looks like − Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or g. Your MySQL connection id is 350 Server version: 5.2.33-log MySQL Community Server (GPL) Type ”help;” or ”h” for help. Type ”c” to clear the buffer. mysql> How to Delete a DB Instance? After completing the task, we should delete the DB instance so will not be charged for it. Follow these steps to delete a DB instance − Step 1 − Sign in to the AWS Management Console and use the following link to open the Amazon RDS console. https://console.aws.amazon.com/rds/ Step 2 − In the DB Instances list, select the DB instances to be deleted. Step 3 − Click the Instance Actions button and then select the Delete option from the dropdown menu. Step 4 − Select No in the Create Final Snapshot. Step 5 − Click the Yes, Delete to delete the DB instance. Cost of Amazon RDS When using Amazon RDS, pay only for only the usage without any minimum and setup charges. Billing is based on the following criteria − Instance class − Pricing is based on the class of the DB instance consumed. Running time − Price is calculated by the instance-hour, which is equivalent to a single instance running per hour. Storage − Bill is calculated as per the storage capacity plan chosen in terms of per GB. I/O requests per month − Billing structure also includes total number of storage I/O requests made in a billing cycle. Backup storage − There is no additional charges for backup storage up to 100% of database. This service is free only for active DB instances. For latest updated price structure and other details, visit the following link − https://aws.amazon.com/rds/pricing/ Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Amazon Web Services – Direct Connect ”; Previous Next AWS Direct Connect permits to create a private network connection from our network to AWS location. It uses 802.1q VLANs, which can be partitioned into multiple virtual interfaces to access public resources using the same connection. This results in reduced network cost and increased bandwidth. Virtual interfaces can be reconfigured at any time as per the requirement. Requirements to Use AWS Direct Connect Our network must meet one of the following conditions to use AWS Direct Connect − Our network should be in the AWS Direct Connect location. Visit this link to know about the available AWS Direct Connect locations https://aws.amazon.com/directconnect/. We should be working with an AWS Direct Connect partner who is a member of the AWS Partner Network (APN). Visit this link to know the list of AWS Direct Connect partners − https://aws.amazon.com/directconnect/ Our service provider must be portable to connect to AWS Direct Connect. Additionally, our network must meet the following necessary conditions − Connections to AWS Direct Connect requires single mode fiber, 1000BASE-LX (1310nm) for 1 gigabit Ethernet, or 10GBASE-LR (1310nm) for 10 gigabit Ethernet. Auto Negotiation for the port must be disabled. Support for 802.1Q VLANs across these connections should be available. Network must support Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and BGP MD5 authentication. Optionally, we may configure Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD). How to Configure AWS Direct Connect? Following are the steps to configure AWS Direct Connect − Step 1 − Open the AWS Direct Connect console using this link − https://console.aws.amazon.com/directconnect/ step 2 − Select AWS Direct Connect region from the navigation bar. step 3 − Welcome page of AWS Direct Connect opens. Select Get Started with Direct Connect. step 4 − Create a Connection dialog box opens up. Fill the required details and click the Create button. AWS will send an confirmation email within 72 hours to the authorized user. Step 5 − Create a Virtual Interface using the following steps. Open AWS console page again. Select Connection in the navigation bar, then select Create Virtual Interface. Fill the required details and click the Continue button. Select Download Router Configuration, then click the Download button. Verify the Virtual Interface (optional). To verify the AWS Direct Connect connections use the following procedures. To verify virtual interface connection to the AWS cloud − Run traceroute and verify that the AWS Direct Connect identifier is in the network trace. To verify virtual interface connection to Amazon VPC − Use any pingable AMI and launch Amazon EC2 instance into the VPC that is attached to the virtual private gateway. When an instance is running, get its private IP address and ping the IP address to get a response. Features of Direct Connect Reduces bandwidth costs − The cost gets reduced in both ways, i.e. it transfers the data to and from AWS directly. The data transferred over your dedicated connection is charged at reduced AWS Direct Connect data transfer rate rather than Internet data transfer rates. Compatible with all AWS services − AWS Direct Connect is a network service, supports all the AWS services that are accessible over the Internet, like Amazon S3, Amazon EC2, Amazon VPC, etc. Private connectivity to Amazon VPC − AWS Direct Connect can be used to establish a private virtual interface from our home-network to Amazon VPC directly with high bandwidth. Elastic − AWS Direct Connect provides 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps connections, having provision to make multiple connections as per requirement. Easy and simple − Easy to sign up on AWS Direct Connect using the AWS Management Console. Using this console, all the connections and virtual interfaces can be managed. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Amazon Web Services – Cloud Computing ”; Previous Next In 2006, Amazon Web Services (AWS) started to offer IT services to the market in the form of web services, which is nowadays known as cloud computing. With this cloud, we need not plan for servers and other IT infrastructure which takes up much of time in advance. Instead, these services can instantly spin up hundreds or thousands of servers in minutes and deliver results faster. We pay only for what we use with no up-front expenses and no long-term commitments, which makes AWS cost efficient. Today, AWS provides a highly reliable, scalable, low-cost infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers multitude of businesses in 190 countries around the world. What is Cloud Computing? Cloud computing is an internet-based computing service in which large groups of remote servers are networked to allow centralized data storage, and online access to computer services or resources. Using cloud computing, organizations can use shared computing and storage resources rather than building, operating, and improving infrastructure on their own. Cloud computing is a model that enables the following features. Users can provision and release resources on-demand. Resources can be scaled up or down automatically, depending on the load. Resources are accessible over a network with proper security. Cloud service providers can enable a pay-as-you-go model, where customers are charged based on the type of resources and per usage. Types of Clouds There are three types of clouds − Public, Private, and Hybrid cloud. Public Cloud In public cloud, the third-party service providers make resources and services available to their customers via Internet. Customer’s data and related security is with the service providers’ owned infrastructure. Private Cloud A private cloud also provides almost similar features as public cloud, but the data and services are managed by the organization or by the third party only for the customer’s organization. In this type of cloud, major control is over the infrastructure so security related issues are minimized. Hybrid Cloud A hybrid cloud is the combination of both private and public cloud. The decision to run on private or public cloud usually depends on various parameters like sensitivity of data and applications, industry certifications and required standards, regulations, etc. Cloud Service Models There are three types of service models in cloud − IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. IaaS IaaS stands for Infrastructure as a Service. It provides users with the capability to provision processing, storage, and network connectivity on demand. Using this service model, the customers can develop their own applications on these resources. PaaS PaaS stands for Platform as a Service. Here, the service provider provides various services like databases, queues, workflow engines, e-mails, etc. to their customers. The customer can then use these components for building their own applications. The services, availability of resources and data backup are handled by the service provider that helps the customers to focus more on their application”s functionality. SaaS SaaS stands for Software as a Service. As the name suggests, here the third-party providers provide end-user applications to their customers with some administrative capability at the application level, such as the ability to create and manage their users. Also some level of customizability is possible such as the customers can use their own corporate logos, colors, etc. Advantages of Cloud Computing Here is a list of some of the most important advantages that Cloud Computing has to offer − Cost-Efficient − Building our own servers and tools is time-consuming as well as expensive as we need to order, pay for, install, and configure expensive hardware, long before we need it. However, using cloud computing, we only pay for the amount we use and when we use the computing resources. In this manner, cloud computing is cost efficient. Reliability − A cloud computing platform provides much more managed, reliable and consistent service than an in-house IT infrastructure. It guarantees 24×7 and 365 days of service. If any of the server fails, then hosted applications and services can easily be transited to any of the available servers. Unlimited Storage − Cloud computing provides almost unlimited storage capacity, i.e., we need not worry about running out of storage space or increasing our current storage space availability. We can access as much or as little as we need. Backup & Recovery − Storing data in the cloud, backing it up and restoring the same is relatively easier than storing it on a physical device. The cloud service providers also have enough technology to recover our data, so there is the convenience of recovering our data anytime. Easy Access to Information − Once you register yourself in cloud, you can access your account from anywhere in the world provided there is internet connection at that point. There are various storage and security facilities that vary with the account type chosen. Disadvantages of Cloud Computing Although Cloud Computing provides a wonderful set of advantages, it has some drawbacks as well that often raise questions about its efficiency. Security issues Security is the major issue in cloud computing. The cloud service providers implement the best security standards and industry certifications, however, storing data and important files on external service providers always bears a risk. AWS cloud infrastructure is designed to be the most flexible and secured cloud network. It provides scalable and highly reliable platform that enables customers to deploy applications and data quickly and securely. Technical issues As cloud service providers offer services to number of clients each day, sometimes the system can have some serious issues leading to business processes temporarily being suspended. Additionally, if the internet connection is offline then we will not be able to access any of the applications, server, or data from the cloud. Not easy to switch service providers Cloud service providers promises vendors that the cloud will be flexible to use and integrate, however switching cloud services is not easy. Most organizations may find it difficult to host and integrate current cloud applications on another platform. Interoperability and

Amazon Web Services – Basic Architecture ”; Previous Next This is the basic structure of AWS EC2, where EC2 stands for Elastic Compute Cloud. EC2 allow users to use virtual machines of different configurations as per their requirement. It allows various configuration options, mapping of individual server, various pricing options, etc. We will discuss these in detail in AWS Products section. Following is the diagrammatic representation of the architecture. Note − In the above diagram S3 stands for Simple Storage Service. It allows the users to store and retrieve various types of data using API calls. It doesn’t contain any computing element. We will discuss this topic in detail in AWS products section. Load Balancing Load balancing simply means to hardware or software load over web servers, that improver”s the efficiency of the server as well as the application. Following is the diagrammatic representation of AWS architecture with load balancing. Hardware load balancer is a very common network appliance used in traditional web application architectures. AWS provides the Elastic Load Balancing service, it distributes the traffic to EC2 instances across multiple available sources, and dynamic addition and removal of Amazon EC2 hosts from the load-balancing rotation. Elastic Load Balancing can dynamically grow and shrink the load-balancing capacity to adjust to traffic demands and also support sticky sessions to address more advanced routing needs. Amazon Cloud-front It is responsible for content delivery, i.e. used to deliver website. It may contain dynamic, static, and streaming content using a global network of edge locations. Requests for content at the user”s end are automatically routed to the nearest edge location, which improves the performance. Amazon Cloud-front is optimized to work with other Amazon Web Services, like Amazon S3 and Amazon EC2. It also works fine with any non-AWS origin server and stores the original files in a similar manner. In Amazon Web Services, there are no contracts or monthly commitments. We pay only for as much or as little content as we deliver through the service. Elastic Load Balancer It is used to spread the traffic to web servers, which improves performance. AWS provides the Elastic Load Balancing service, in which traffic is distributed to EC2 instances over multiple available zones, and dynamic addition and removal of Amazon EC2 hosts from the load-balancing rotation. Elastic Load Balancing can dynamically grow and shrink the load-balancing capacity as per the traffic conditions. Security Management Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) provides a feature called security groups, which is similar to an inbound network firewall, in which we have to specify the protocols, ports, and source IP ranges that are allowed to reach your EC2 instances. Each EC2 instance can be assigned one or more security groups, each of which routes the appropriate traffic to each instance. Security groups can be configured using specific subnets or IP addresses which limits access to EC2 instances. Elastic Caches Amazon Elastic Cache is a web service that manages the memory cache in the cloud. In memory management, cache has a very important role and helps to reduce the load on the services, improves the performance and scalability on the database tier by caching frequently used information. Amazon RDS Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service) provides a similar access as that of MySQL, Oracle, or Microsoft SQL Server database engine. The same queries, applications, and tools can be used with Amazon RDS. It automatically patches the database software and manages backups as per the user’s instruction. It also supports point-in-time recovery. There are no up-front investments required, and we pay only for the resources we use. Hosting RDMS on EC2 Instances Amazon RDS allows users to install RDBMS (Relational Database Management System) of your choice like MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, etc. on an EC2 instance and can manage as required. Amazon EC2 uses Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Storage) similar to network-attached storage. All data and logs running on EC2 instances should be placed on Amazon EBS volumes, which will be available even if the database host fails. Amazon EBS volumes automatically provide redundancy within the availability zone, which increases the availability of simple disks. Further if the volume is not sufficient for our databases needs, volume can be added to increase the performance for our database. Using Amazon RDS, the service provider manages the storage and we only focus on managing the data. Storage & Backups AWS cloud provides various options for storing, accessing, and backing up web application data and assets. The Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) provides a simple web-services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. Amazon S3 stores data as objects within resources called buckets. The user can store as many objects as per requirement within the bucket, and can read, write and delete objects from the bucket. Amazon EBS is effective for data that needs to be accessed as block storage and requires persistence beyond the life of the running instance, such as database partitions and application logs. Amazon EBS volumes can be maximized up to 1 TB, and these volumes can be striped for larger volumes and increased performance. Provisioned IOPS volumes are designed to meet the needs of database workloads that are sensitive to storage performance and consistency. Amazon EBS currently supports up to 1,000 IOPS per volume. We can stripe multiple volumes together to deliver thousands of IOPS per instance to an application. Auto Scaling The difference between AWS cloud architecture and the traditional hosting model is that AWS can dynamically scale the web application fleet on demand to handle changes in traffic. In the traditional hosting model, traffic forecasting models are generally used to provision hosts ahead of projected traffic. In AWS, instances can be provisioned on the fly according to a set of triggers for scaling the fleet out and back in. Amazon Auto Scaling can create capacity groups of servers that can grow or shrink on demand. Key Considerations for Web Hosting in

Amazon Web Services – WorkSpaces ”; Previous Next Amazon WorkSpaces is a fully managed desktop computing service in the cloud that allows its customers to provide cloud-based desktops to their end-users. Through this the end users can access the documents, applications, and resources using devices of their choice such as laptops, iPad, Kindle Fire, or Android tablets. This service was launched to meet its customers rising demand for Cloud based ”Desktop as a Service” (DaaS). How It Works? Each WorkSpace is a persistent Windows Server 2008 R2 instance that looks like Windows 7, hosted on the AWS cloud. Desktops are streamed to users via PCoIP and the data backed up will be taken on every 12 hours by default. User Requirements An Internet connection with TCP and UDP open ports is required at the user’s end. They have to download a free Amazon WorkSpaces client application for their device. How to Create Amazon Workspaces? Step 1 − Create and configure the VPC. (This we will discuss in detail in the VPC chapter.) Step 2 − Create an AD Directory using the following steps. Use the following link to open Amazon WorkSpace Console − https://console.aws.amazon.com/workspaces/ Select Directories, then Setup Directory in the navigation panel. A new page will open. Select Create Simple AD button, then fill the required details. In VPC section, fill the VPC details and select Next step. A review page will open to review the information. Make changes if incorrect, then click the Create Simple AD button. Step 3 − Create a WorkSpace using the following steps. Use the following link to open Amazon WorkSpace Console − https://console.aws.amazon.com/workspaces/ Select Workspaces and then launch WorkSpaces option in the navigation panel. Select the cloud directory. Enable/disable WorkDocs for all users in this directory, then click the Yes, Next button. A new page will open. Fill the details for the new user and select the Create Users button. Once the user is added to the WorkSpace list, select Next. Enter the number of bundles needed in the value field of WorkSpaces Bundles page, then select Next. A review page will open. Check the details and make changes if required. Select Launch WorkSpaces. There will be a message to confirm the account, after which we can use WorkSpaces. Step 4 − Test your WorkSpaces using the following steps. Download and install the Amazon WorkSpaces client application using the following link − https://clients.amazonworkspaces.com/. Run the application. For the first time, we need to enter the registration code received in email and click Register. Connect to the WorkSpace by entering the user name and password for the user. Select Sign In. Now WorkSpace desktop is displayed. Open this link http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/ on THE web browser. Navigate and verify that the page can be viewed. A message saying “Congratulations! Your Amazon WorkSpaces cloud directory has been created, and your first WorkSpace is working correctly and has Internet access” will be received. Amazon WorkSpaces Features Network Health Check-Up This AWS WorkSpaces feature verifies if the network and Internet connections are working, checks if WorkSpaces and their associated registration services are accessible, checks if the port 4172 is open for UDP and TCP access or not. Client Reconnect This AWS WorkSpaces feature allows the users to access to their WorkSpace without entering their credentials every time when they disconnect. The application installed at the client’s device saves an access token in a secure store, which is valid for 12 hours and uses to authenticate the right user. Users click on the Reconnect button on the application to get access on their WorkSpace. Users can disable this feature any time. Auto Resume Session This AWS WorkSpaces feature allows the client to resume a session that was disconnected due to any reason in network connectivity within 20 minutes (by default and can be extended for 4 hours). Users can disable this feature any time in group policy section. Console Search This feature allows Administrators to search for WorkSpaces by their user name, bundle type, or directory. Benefits of Amazon WorkSpaces Easy to set up − Customers can choose AWS WorkSpaces plans of their choice and provide requirements such as CPU type, memory, storage and applications, and number of desktops. Choice of devices and applications − Customers can install Amazon WorkSpace application on their device (Laptops, iPads, Tablets) free of cost and can choose applications from the available list. Cost-effective − Amazon WorkSpaces require no upfront commitment and the customers pay as they customize their desktop, on a monthly basis. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

AWS – Elastic Compute Cloud ”; Previous Next Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) is a web service interface that provides resizable compute capacity in the AWS cloud. It is designed for developers to have complete control over web-scaling and computing resources. EC2 instances can be resized and the number of instances scaled up or down as per our requirement. These instances can be launched in one or more geographical locations or regions, and Availability Zones (AZs). Each region comprises of several AZs at distinct locations, connected by low latency networks in the same region. EC2 Components In AWS EC2, the users must be aware about the EC2 components, their operating systems support, security measures, pricing structures, etc. Operating System Support Amazon EC2 supports multiple OS in which we need to pay additional licensing fees like: Red Hat Enterprise, SUSE Enterprise and Oracle Enterprise Linux, UNIX, Windows Server, etc. These OS needs to be implemented in conjunction with Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). Security Users have complete control over the visibility of their AWS account. In AWS EC2, the security systems allow create groups and place running instances into it as per the requirement. You can specify the groups with which other groups may communicate, as well as the groups with which IP subnets on the Internet may talk. Pricing AWS offers a variety of pricing options, depending on the type of resources, types of applications and database. It allows the users to configure their resources and compute the charges accordingly. Fault tolerance Amazon EC2 allows the users to access its resources to design fault-tolerant applications. EC2 also comprises geographic regions and isolated locations known as availability zones for fault tolerance and stability. It doesn’t share the exact locations of regional data centers for security reasons. When the users launch an instance, they must select an AMI that”s in the same region where the instance will run. Instances are distributed across multiple availability zones to provide continuous services in failures, and Elastic IP (EIPs) addresses are used to quickly map failed instance addresses to concurrent running instances in other zones to avoid delay in services. Migration This service allows the users to move existing applications into EC2. It costs $80.00 per storage device and $2.49 per hour for data loading. This service suits those users having large amount of data to move. Features of EC2 Here is a list of some of the prominent features of EC2 − Reliable − Amazon EC2 offers a highly reliable environment where replacement of instances is rapidly possible. Service Level Agreement commitment is 99.9% availability for each Amazon EC2 region. Designed for Amazon Web Services − Amazon EC2 works fine with Amazon services like Amazon S3, Amazon RDS, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon SQS. It provides a complete solution for computing, query processing, and storage across a wide range of applications. Secure − Amazon EC2 works in Amazon Virtual Private Cloud to provide a secure and robust network to resources. Flexible Tools − Amazon EC2 provides the tools for developers and system administrators to build failure applications and isolate themselves from common failure situations. Inexpensive − Amazon EC2 wants us to pay only for the resources that we use. It includes multiple purchase plans such as On-Demand Instances, Reserved Instances, Spot Instances, etc. which we can choose as per our requirement. How to Use AWS EC2 Step 1 − Sign-in to AWS account and open IAM console by using the following link https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/. Step 2 − In the navigation Panel, create/view groups and follow the instructions. Step 3 − Create IAM user. Choose users in the navigation pane. Then create new users and add users to the groups. Step 4 − Create a Virtual Private Cloud using the following instructions. Open the Amazon VPC console by using the following link − https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/ Select VPC from the navigation panel. Then select the same region in which we have created key-pair. Select start VPC wizard on VPC dashboard. Select VPC configuration page and make sure that VPC with single subnet is selected. The choose Select. VPC with a single public subnet page will open. Enter the VPC name in the name field and leave other configurations as default. Select create VPC, then select Ok. Step 5 − Create WebServerSG security groups and add rules using the following instructions. On the VPC console, select Security groups in the navigation panel. Select create security group and fill the required details like group name, name tag, etc. Select your VPC ID from the menu. Then select yes, create button. Now a group is created. Select the edit option in the inbound rules tab to create rules. Step 6 − Launch EC2 instance into VPC using the following instructions. Open EC2 console by using the following link − https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/ Select launch instance option in the dashboard. A new page will open. Choose Instance Type and provide the configuration. Then select Next: Configure Instance Details. A new page will open. Select VPC from the network list. Select subnet from the subnet list and leave the other settings as default. Click Next until the Tag Instances page appears. Step 7 − On the Tag Instances page, provide a tag with a name to the instances. Select Next: Configure Security Group. Step 8 − On the Configure Security Group page, choose the Select an existing security group option. Select the WebServerSG group that we created previously, and then choose Review and Launch. Step 9 − Check Instance details on Review Instance Launch page then click the Launch button. Step 10 − A pop up dialog box will open. Select an existing key pair or create a new key pair. Then select the acknowledgement check box and click the Launch Instances button. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Amazon Web Services – Auto Scaling ”; Previous Next As the name suggests, auto scaling allows you to scale your Amazon EC2 instances up or down automatically as per the instructions set by the user. Parameters like minimum and maximum number of instances are set by the user. Using this, the number of Amazon EC2 instances you’re using increases automatically as the demand rises to maintain the performance, and decreases automatically as the demand decreases to minimize the cost. Auto Scaling is particularly effective for those applications that fluctuate on hourly, daily, or weekly usage. Auto Scaling is enabled by Amazon CloudWatch and is available at no extra cost. AWS CloudWatch can be used to measure CPU utilization, network traffic, etc. Elastic Load Balancing Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) automatically distributes incoming request traffic across multiple Amazon EC2 instances and results in achieving higher fault tolerance. It detects unfit instances and automatically reroutes traffic to fit instances until the unfit instances have been restored in a round-robin manner. However, if we need more complex routing algorithms, then choose other services like Amazon Route53. ELB consists of the following three components. Load Balancer This includes monitoring and handling the requests incoming through the Internet/intranet and distributes them to EC2 instances registered with it. Control Service This includes automatically scaling of handling capacity in response to incoming traffic by adding and removing load balancers as required. It also performs fitness check of instances. SSL Termination ELB provides SSL termination that saves precious CPU cycles, encoding and decoding SSL within your EC2 instances attached to the ELB. An X.509 certificate is required to be configured within the ELB. This SSL connection in the EC2 instance is optional, we can also terminate it. Features of ELB Following are the most prominent features of ELB − ELS is designed to handle unlimited requests per second with gradually increasing load pattern. We can configure EC2 instances and load balancers to accept traffic. We can add/remove load balancers as per requirement without affecting the overall flow of information. It is not designed to handle sudden increase in requests like online exams, online trading, etc. Customers can enable Elastic Load Balancing within a single Availability Zone or across multiple zones for even more consistent application performance. How to Create Load Balancers? Step 1 − Go to Amazon EC2 console using this link − https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/. Step 2 − Select your load balancer region from the region menu on the right side. Step 3 − Select Load Balancers from the navigation pane and choose Create Load Balancer option. A pop-up window will open and we need to provide the required details. Step 4 − In load Balancer name box: Enter name of your load balancer. Step 5 − In create LB inside box: Select the same network which you have selected for instances. Step 6 − Select Enable advanced VPC configuration, if selected default VPC. Step 7 − Click the Add button and a new pop-up will appear to select subnets from the list of available subnets as shown in the following screenshot. Select only one subnet per availability zone. This window will not appear if we do not select Enable advanced VPC configuration. Step 8 − Choose Next; a pop-up window will open. After selecting a VPC as your network, assign security groups to Load Balancers. Step 9 − Follow the instructions to assign security groups to load balancers and click Next. Step 10 − A new pop-up will open having health checkup configuration details with default values. Values can be set on our own, however these are optional. Click on Next: Add EC2 Instances. Step 11 − A pop-up window will open having information about instances like registered instances, add instances to load balancers by selecting ADD EC2 Instance option and fill the information required. Click Add Tags. Step 12 − Adding tags to your load balancer is optional. To add tags click the Add Tags Page and fill the details such as key, value to the tag. Then choose Create Tag option. Click Review and Create button. A review page opens on which we can verify the setting. We can even change the settings by choosing the edit link. Step 13 − Click Create to create your load balancer and then click the Close button. How to Delete a Load Balancer? Step 1 − Go to Amazon EC2 console using this link − https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/. Step 2 − Choose Load Balancers option from the navigation pane. Step 3 − Select Load balancer and click the Action button. Step 4 − Click the Delete button. An alert window will appear, click the Yes, Delete button. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Amazon Web Services – Virtual Private Cloud ”; Previous Next Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) allows the users to use AWS resources in a virtual network. The users can customize their virtual networking environment as they like, such as selecting own IP address range, creating subnets, and configuring route tables and network gateways. The list of AWS services that can be used with Amazon VPC are − Amazon EC2 Amazon Route 53 Amazon WorkSpaces Auto Scaling Elastic Load Balancing AWS Data Pipeline Elastic Beanstalk Amazon Elastic Cache Amazon EMR Amazon OpsWorks Amazon RDS Amazon Redshift How to Use Amazon VPC? Following are the steps to create VPC. Create VPC Step 1 − Open the Amazon VPC console by using the following link − https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/ Step 2 − Select creating the VPC option on the right side of the navigation bar. Make sure that the same region is selected as for other services. Step 3 − Click the start VPC wizard option, then click VPC with single public subnet option on the left side. Step 4 − A configuration page will open. Fill in the details like VPC name, subnet name and leave the other fields as default. Click the Create VPC button. Step 5 − A dialog box will open, showing the work in progress. When it is completed, select the OK button. The Your VPCs page opens which shows a list of available VPCs. The setting of VPC can be changed here. Select/Create VPC Group Step 1 − Open the Amazon VPC console by using the following link − https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/ Step 2 − Select the security groups option in the navigation bar, then choose create security group option. Step 3 − A form will open, enter the details like group name, name tag, etc. Select ID of your VPC from VPC menu, then select the Yes, create button. Step 4 − The list of groups opens. Select the group name from the list and set rules. Then click the Save button. Launch Instance into VPC Step 1 − Open the Amazon VPC console using the following link − https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/ Step 2 − Select the same region as while creating VPC and security group. Step 3 − Now select the Launch Instance option in the navigation bar. Step 4 − A page opens. Choose the AMI which is to be used. Step 5 − A new page opens. Choose an Instance Type and select the hardware configuration. Then select Next: Configure Instance Details. Step 6 − Select the recently created VPC from the Network list, and the subnet from the Subnet list. Leave the other settings as default and click Next till the Tag Instance page. Step 7 − On the Tag Instance page, tag the instance with the Name tag. This helps to identify your instance from the list of multiple instances. Click Next: Configure Security Group. Step 8 − On the Configure Security Group page, select the recently created group from the list. Then, select Review and Launch button. Step 9 − On the Review Instance Launch page, check your instance details, then select Launch. Step 10 − A dialog box appears. Choose the option Select an existing key pair or create a new key pair, then click the Launch Instances button. Step 11 − The confirmation page open which shows all the details related to instances. Assign Elastic IP Address to VPC Instances Step 1 − Open the Amazon VPC console using the following link − https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/ Step 2 − Select Elastic IP’s option in the navigation bar. Step 3 − Select Allocate New Address. Then select Yes, Allocate button. Step 4 − Select your Elastic IP address from the list, then select Actions, and then click the Associate Address button. Step 5 − A dialog box will open. First select the Instance from the Associate with list. Then select your instance from the Instance list. Finally click the Yes, Associate button. Delete a VPC There are several steps to delete VPC without losing any resources associated with it. Following are the steps to delete a VPC. Step 1 − Open the Amazon VPC console using the following link − https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/ Step 2 − Select Instances option in the navigation bar. Step 3 − Select the Instance from the list, then select the Actions → Instance State → Terminate button. Step 4 − A new dialog box opens. Expand the Release attached Elastic IPs section, and select the checkbox next to the Elastic IP address. Click the Yes, Terminate button. Step 5 − Again open the Amazon VPC console using the following link − https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/ Step 6 − Select the VPC from the navigation bar. Then select Actions & finally click the Delete VPC button. Step 7 − A confirmation message appears. Click the Yes, Delete button. Features of VPC Many connectivity options − There are various connectivity options that exist in Amazon VPC. Connect VPC directly to the Internet via public subnets. Connect to the Internet using Network Address Translation via private subnets. Connect securely to your corporate datacenter via encrypted IPsec hardware VPN connection. Connect privately to other VPCs in which we can share resources across multiple virtual networks through AWS account. Connect to Amazon S3 without using an internet gateway and have good control over S3 buckets, its user requests, groups, etc. Combine connection of VPC and datacenter is possible by configuring Amazon VPC route tables to direct all traffic to its destination. Easy to use − Ease of creating a VPC in very simple steps by selecting network set-ups as per requirement. Click “Start VPC Wizard”, then Subnets, IP ranges, route tables, and security groups will be automatically created. Easy to backup data − Periodically backup data from the datacenter into Amazon EC2 instances by using Amazon EBS volumes. Easy to extend network using Cloud − Move applications, launch additional web servers and increase storage capacity by connecting it to a VPC. Print Page