book

Programming Amazon EC2

by Jurg van Vliet, Flavia Paganelli

February 2011

Intermediate to advanced

186 pages

5h 12m

English

O'Reilly Media, Inc.

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AudienceConventions Used in This BookUsing Code ExamplesSafari® Books OnlineHow to Contact UsAcknowledgments
From 0 to AWSBiggest Problem FirstInfinite StorageComputing Per HourVery Scalable Data StoreOptimizing Even MoreGoing GlobalGrowing into Your ApplicationStart with Realistic ExpectationsSimply SmallGrowing UpMoving Out“You Build It, You Run It”Individuals and Interactions: One TeamWorking Software: Shared ResponsibilityCustomer Collaboration: Evolve Your InfrastructureResponding to Change: Saying Yes with a SmileIn Short
Setting Up Your EnvironmentYour AWS AccountCommand-Line ToolsAWS Management ConsoleOther ToolsChoosing Your Geographic Location, Regions, and Availability ZonesChoosing an ArchitectureCreating the Rails Server on EC2Creating a Key PairFinding a Suitable AMISetting Up the Web/Application ServerLaunching an instance (Request Instances Wizard)Setting up the instanceCreating and using an EBS volumeCreating and associating an EIPInstalling the softwareCreating a custom imageProvisioning the instance at boot/launchUser dataRDS DatabaseCreating an RDS Instance (Launching the DB Instance Wizard)Is This All?S3/CloudFrontSetting Up S3 and CloudFrontStatic Content to S3/CloudFrontCase study: Publitas—CloudFront to the rescueMaking Backups of VolumesInstalling the ToolsRunning the ScriptIn Short
Preparing to ScaleSetting Up the ToolsS3 for File UploadsUser Uploads for Kulitzer (Rails)Elastic Load BalancingCreating an ELBDifficulties with ELBAuto ScalingSetting Up Auto ScalingLaunch configurationAutoscaling groupAutoscaling (alarms and policies)SemiautoscalingAuto Scaling in ProductionPausing Auto ScalingReplacing the launch configurationChanging the alarmsChanging the autoscaling groupDecommissioning an autoscaling groupScaling a Relational DatabaseScaling Up (or Down)DB instance classesScaling OutStorage engineTips and TricksDisk is slowSlow logStorageElastic BeanstalkIn Short
SQSExample 1: Offloading Image Processing for Kulitzer (Ruby)Example 2: Priority PDF Processing for Marvia (PHP)Installing the tools for PHPWriting messagesReading messagesExample 3: Monitoring Queues in Decaf (Java)Getting the queuesReading the queue attributesChecking a specific queue attributeSimpleDBUse Cases for SimpleDBExample 1: Storing Users for Kulitzer (Ruby)Adding a userGetting a userExample 2: Sharing Marvia Accounts and Templates (PHP)Adding an accountGetting an accountIncrementing the counterExample 3: SimpleDB in Decaf (Java)Listing domainsListing items in a domain: selectGetting domain metadataSNSExample 1: Implementing Contest Rules for Kulitzer (Ruby)Preparing tools for SNS in RubyTopics per contestSubscribing to registration updatesPublishing messages to a topicDeleting a topicPublishing to FacebookExample 2: PDF Processing Status (Monitoring) for Marvia (PHP)Creating a topic for an accountSubscription and confirmationPublishing and receiving status updatesExample 3: SNS in Decaf (Java)Listing topicsSubscribing to a topic via emailSending notifications on a topicIn Short
MeasureUp/Down AlertsMonitoring on the InsideMonitoring on the OutsideCloudWatchELBsRegionUnderstandWhy Did I Lose My Instance?Spikes Are InterestingPredicting BottlenecksImprovement StrategiesBenchmarking and TuningThe Merits of Virtual HardwareReplace hardwareScaling upAuto Scaling group of oneIn Short
MeasureEC2DimensionsMetricsELBDimensionsMetricsRDSDimensionsMetricsUsing Dimensions from the Command LineAlertsUnderstandSetting ExpectationsViewing ComponentsImprovement StrategiesPlanning Nonautoscaling ComponentsTuning Auto ScalingIn Short
MeasureS3SQSQueue sizeLatencyThroughputSimpleDBSizeFragmentationSNSBurst factorUnderstandImbalancesBurstsImprovement StrategiesQueues Neutralize BurstsNotifications AccelerateIn Short

Other ApproachesPrivate/Hybrid CloudsThank You

Content preview from Programming Amazon EC2

Preface

Thank you for picking up a copy of this book. Amazon Web Services (AWS) has amazed everyone: Amazon has made lots of friends, and all its “enemies” are too busy admiring AWS to do much fighting back. At the moment, there is no comparable public Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS); AWS offers the services at a scale that has not been seen before. We wrote this book so you can get the most out of AWS’ services. If you come from conventional hardware infrastructures, once you are on AWS, you won’t want to go back.

AWS is not easy; it combines skills of several different (established) crafts. It is different from traditional systems administration, and it’s not just developing a piece of software. If you have practiced one or both of these skills, all you need is to be inquisitive and open to learning.

Our background is in software engineering. We are computer scientists with extensive software engineering experience in all sorts of different fields and organizations. But the cloud in general and AWS in particular caught our interest some years ago. We got serious about this by building Decaf, an Android smartphone application that manages Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) accounts. We were finalists in the Android Developer Challenge in 2009. We will use Decaf to illustrate various AWS services and techniques throughout this book.

Around the same time, in early 2010, we decided we wanted to build applications on AWS. We founded 9Apps and set out to find a select group of partners ...