What are the exact differences between EC2, Beanstalk and LightSail in AWS?
What are good real time scenarios in which I should use these services?
They are all based on EC2, the compute service from AWS allowing you to create EC2 instances (virtual machines in the cloud).
Lightsail is packaged in a similar way than Virtual Private Server, making it easy for anyone to start with their own server. It has a simplified management console and many options are tuned with default values that maximize availability and security.
Elastic Beanstalk is a service for application developers that provisions an EC2 instance and a load balancer automatically. It creates the EC2 instance, it installs an execution environment on these machines and will deploy your application for you (Elastic Beanstalk support Java, Node, Python, Docker and many others)
Behind the scenes, Elastic Beanstalk creates regular EC2 instances that you will see in your AWS Console.
And EC2 is the bare service that allows the other to be possible. If you choose to create an EC2 instance, you will have to choose your operating system, manage your ssh key, install your application runtime and configure security settings by yourself. You have full control of that virtual machine.
In simple terms:
EC2 - virtual host or an image. which you can use it to install apps and have a machine to do whatever you like.
Lightsail - is similar but more user friendly management option and good for small applications.
Beanstalk - an orchestration tool, which does all the work to create an EC2, install application, software and give you freedom from manual tasks in creating an environment.
More details at - https://stackshare.io/stackups/amazon-ec2-vs-amazon-lightsail-vs-aws-elastic-beanstalk
I don't know if my scenario is typical in any way, but here are the differences that were critical for me. I'm happier EC2 than EB:
EC2:
just a remote linux machine with shell (command line) access
tracable application-level errors, easy to see what is wrong with your application
you can use AWS web console panel or AWS command line tool to manage
you will need repeated steps if you want to reproduce same environment
some effort to get proper shell access (eg fix security rule to your IP only)
no load balancer provided by default
Elastic Beanstalk
a service that creates a EC2 instance with a programming language of your choice (eg Python, PHP, etc)
runs one application on that machine (for python - application.py)
upload applications as .zip file, extra effort needed to use your git source
need to get used to environment vs applications mental model
application level errors hidden deep in the server logs, logs downloaded in separate menu
can be managed by web console, but also needs another CLI tool in addition to AWS CLI (you end up installing two CLI tools)
provides load balancer and other server-level services, takes away the manual setup part
great for scaling stable appications, not so much for trial-and-see experimentaion
probably more expensive than just an EC2 instance
Amazon EC2 is a virtual host, in other words, it is a server where you can SSH configure your application, install dependencies and so on, like in your local machine. EC2 has a dozen of AMI (Amazon Machine Image: it is some kind of operating system of your EC2 server, for instance, you can have EC2 running on Linux based OS or in windows OS). To summarize, it is a great idea if you need a machine in your hands.
Amazon Lightsail is a simple tool that you can deploy and manage application with small management of servers. You can find it very practical if your application is small, For instance, it will perfectly fit your application if you use Wordpress or other CMS.
AWS Elastic Beanstalk is an orchestration tool. You can manage your application within that service, it is more elevated then AWS Light Sail.
If you still do not understand the differences, you can take a look at each service overview.
There is also an answer in Quora
I have spent only 10 mins on these technologies but here is my first take.
EC2 - a baremetal service. It gives you a server with an OS. That is it. There is nothing else installed on it. So if you need a webserver (nginx) or python, you'll need to do it yourself.
Beanstalk - helps you deploy your applications. Say you have a python/flask application which you want to run on a server. Traditionally you'll have to build the app, move the deployable package to another machine where a web server should be installed, then move the package into some directory in the web server. Beanstalk does all this for you automatically.
LightSail - I haven't tried it but it seem to be an even simpler option to create a server with pre-installed os/software.
In summary, these seem to make application deployment more easier by pre-configuring the server/EC2s with the required software packages and security policies (eg. port nos. etc.).
I am not an expert so I could be wrong.
Related
I have an EC2 instance which hosts a windows service, .net API and a simple .net website. There's also the added complication of a Route 53 endpoint pointing to it and an https cert being allocated via Amazon certificate manager. Yes, it's a lot of apps on a single instance and I will look at separating them later. I got a message from AWS saying that due to the underlying infrastructure becoming unstable, they'll need to terminate the instance in a week.
Lot of options come to mind, none of which I've tried before or know much about. These options include spinning up another instance, backing up and restoring this instance on to the new one. OR using AWS elastic beanstalk or something to automate the infrastructure setup and code deployment. Which of these (or another) options is most feasible and quick to get working and where should I start looking?
If it's just the instance, I'd go for an EBS snapshot and then restore the ec2 instance from it. Finally, swap the IP in Route 53.
It's a relatively quick and rather straight-forward process, that's well documented by AWS and there are loads of how-to's on the Web too.
Here's where to start:
Create Amazon EBS Snapshot
and here's how to restore it.
On the other hand, you could go for a .Net app on Elastic Beanstalk but that requires a bit more work to set up the environment and prepare the app for deployment.
More on how to create and deploy .NET on Elastic Beanstalk.
So I’ve just finished working on my first big personal project, bought a domain name, created an AWS account, watched a lot of AWS tutorials, but I still can’t figure out how to host my web app on AWS. The whole AWS thing is a mystery to me. No tutorial online seems to teach exactly what I need.
What I’m trying to do is this:
Host my dynamic web app on a secure https connection.
Host the web app using the personalized domain name I purchased.
Link my git repo to AWS so I can easily commit and push changes when needed.
Please assist me by pointing me to a resource that can help me achieve the above 3 tasks.
For now, the web app is still hosted on Heroku’s free service; feel free to take a look at the application, and provide some feedback if you can.
Link to web app:my web app
You mentioned - The web app is still hosted on Heroku’s free service
So, if you want the same thing in AWS, use Elastic Beanstalk.
First Question: How to host my web app on AWS?
There can be multiple options to host your web app:-
S3 Bucket to host your website. How to Host in S3
Elastic Beanstalk. Link
ECS - using containers
Single EC2 Server to host your website.
EKS - Kubernetes
By the way, there are many couples of things which you need to take care of before starting.
Second Question, Host the web app using the personalized domain name I purchased.
If you have used S3, the hosted URL will be in HTTP and you can create a route entry in your purchased domain settings. If it is AWS, create a new record in Route53.
If you host your website on EC2, you will get Public IP Address. Make a route entry with that Public IP.
If you have used ECS or EKS, you might require to use the Load Balancer and then you will have the Load Balancer DNS. Make a route entry with your Load Balancer DNS. Then again question will arise which kind of Load Balancer you want to use. [Like Application, Classic or Network Load Balancer]
If you use Elastic Beanstalk. It's a managed service, when you host you will directly get an endpoint. Make a route entry with that endpoint.
Third, Link my git repo to AWS so I can easily commit and push changes when needed.
For this, you have to use Code Build and connect Github as a Source while creating Code Build Project. Link
For CI-CD, there are multiple things again.
As Heroku’s is a PaaS, which provides you the platform and but when it comes to AWS, it is an IaaS. So you get the infrastructure and when you get the provisioned infrastructure, there are so many things which you need to take care of like you have to think like an Architect. Prepare the architecture and then proceed. It requires knowledge of other things also networking, security etc.
To answer your question, the best way to host a web app in AWS is Elastic Beanstalk
But what is AWS Elastic Beanstalk and what does it do?
AWS Elastic Beanstalk encompasses processes and operations connected with the deployment of web apps into the cloud environment, as well as their scaling.
Elastic Beanstalk automates the deployment by putting forward the required capacity, balancing the load, autoscaling, and monitoring software efficiency and performance. All that is left for a developer to do is to apply the code. In these conditions, the application owner has overall control over the capacity that AWS provides for the software and can access it at any time.
So this is the best way to deploy the app and let’s follow the steps.
Open the Elastic Beanstalk console and find the management page of your environment.
Select “Upload and Deploy”.
Select “Choose File” and choose the source bundle with the dialog box.
Deploy and select the URL to open the new website.
You can use CodeDeploy to connect your Github and deploy your code
Conclusion
I have taken a simplistic approach and told you exactly what you need to do the required task without going into the hus and fuss of AWS. Saying that there is still a lot that can be done to bring the real value of your application in terms of balancing the load, scaling or improving the performance.
I have a very specific requirement for which I'm trying to use Elastic Beanstalk where I do not require an internet facing web server. The actual requirement is a little involved but boils down to needing a continuously running EC2 server which every 15mins uses wget or curl to pull a fairly large file from a private URL (other options have been looked at but for reasons outside my control this is the only way) where the transfer takes about 360s thus precluding the use of a CloudWatch-triggered Lambda function.
Since I don't want the hassle of managing the EC2 instance myself, I was looking at Elastic Beanstalk as a nice managed solution. I have proven my solution works as required on Beanstalk (where I have configured a cron job in .ebextensions/ to invoke a small shell script to wget the file and then upload it to a S3 bucket). It doesn't need Node.js, PHP, Python, Ruby, Go, Docker or any of the other platform options offered by Beanstalk, but Beanstalk is perfect for my particular use case.
The only thing is, it seems I get an Apache web server running on the EC2 whether I like it or not. What are my options here for configuring Beanstalk so that no Apache process is started?
Hi We have built a java based web services project with using jboss server. How do I host this application with Amazon cloud? This web services act as back end for a mobile android app.
I am looking for PaaS option of Jboss server and Postgres database. I could create a postgres database. But could not find Jboss server.
My understanding is in PaaS, Jboss and Postgres should be able to scale up itself as per demand.
Another option provided by Amazon is EC2 as far as I have understood. But if I go with EC2, I will have install and set up jboss and postgres on my own. Then does it scale up by itself as per demand?
Please guide.
If you want to deploy your web application to AWS and ensure its scalability, you have basically two options:
EC2 instance [IaaS] - The disadvantage is, as you mentioned in your question, that you have to configure everything manually. Some external mechanism for scaling has to be used. Amazon provides its AutoScaling service which can be configured to launch new EC2 instances based on utilization or some other metric.
Elastic Beanstalk [PaaS] - This service has the auto-scaling already built in and manages the EC2 instances with your application on its own (it takes care about launching them, deploying the app etc). The disadvantage is that JBoss server is not support at the moment (you would have to switch to Tomcat).
There is a way, how to make JBoss work on Elastic Beanstalk, however. ELB has newly added the support for Docker so if you make your JBoss API run in Docker, you can deploy it to ELB and scale it without much effort and configuration.
As for the database, mentioned in your question, Amazon has plenty of choices, Postgres included, in their RDS service.
I wonder about the choice of AWS Elastic Beanstalk as an environment for the production system. Do you have some experience in this regard?
More info as I have been using EB for more than 8 months...
So far so good, elastic beanstalk has its limitation though.
It is designed for service handling, but when you just want a processing unit, you need to do something additional for ELB and autoscaling.
Fixed in latest release: No VPC yet, so your Elastic Beanstalk is still exposed to the internet., but VPC support is limited and need manually config through config files.
Fixed in latest release: Not easy to customize the webserver (e.g. tomcat) you have to use your own images.
Limited tuning option on the webserver parameter.
From my experience, reliability is OK not great, the main problem is the EB automation scripts sometime can stuck you environment.
But overall I like it.
We deployed our Java webapplication (all three environments) Beta, Staging and live on ElasticBeanStalk. They are doing well, so far we haven't faced any issues with Elastic Beanstalk.