I am looking to use CloudFormation templates alongside AMI's for which I installed and configured my software to simplify deployment of software setups to a handful of regions and maybe other AWS accounts.
One issue is that the AMI for creating EC2 instances must be in the region, and also the ID gets changed when copying it. Since this is only for a small number of deployments, and most of the images are not needed after the instance is created, I would like to avoid having to copy (and pay for) every image to every region just in case.
Instead is there some way to have my template copy the AMI (e.g. copy-image CLI ) and then use that with the Instance? Ideally it would also delete the AMI afterwards (e.g. deregister-image and delete-snapshot) where being used for persistent EC2 instances or on stack deletion/rollback.
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We have an EC2 instance running in AWS EC2 instance. We have our ML algorithms and data that. We have also hosted a web-based interface also in that machine.
Now there are no new developments happening in that EC2 instance. We would like to terminate AWS subscription for a short period of time (for the purpose of cost-reduction and exploring new cloud services). Most importantly, we want to be in a position where we can purchase a new EC2 instance with a fresh AWS subscription, use the backup which we take now, and resume all operations (web-backend, SMS services for our app which is hosted in AWS, etc.).
What is the best way to do it? Is temporary termination of AWS subscription advisable?
There is no concept of an "AWS Subscription". AWS is charged on-demand, which means you only pay when you use resources.
If you temporarily do not want the Amazon EC2 instance, you could:
Stop the instance, which is like turning off the power. You will not be charged for the instance, but you will still pay for the disk storage attached to the instance. You can simply Start the instance again when you wish to use it. You will only be charged while the instance is running. OR
Create an image of the instance, then terminate the instance. This will create an Amazon Machine Image (AMI), which contains a copy of the disks. You can then launch a new Amazon EC2 instance from the AMI when you wish to use it again. This is a lower-cost option compared to simply stopping the instance, but it takes more effort to stop/start.
It is quite common for companies to stop Amazon EC2 instances at night or over the weekend to reduce costs while they are not needed.
EDIT: Just thought of a third option. Will test it and be back. Not worth it; it would involve creating an image from the EC2 instance and then convert that image to a VM image, storing the VM image in S3. There may be some advantages to this, but I do not see them.
I think you have two options, both of them very reasonably priced. If you can separate the data from the operating system, then your best option would be to use an S3 bucket as a file system within the EC2 instance. Your EC2 instance would use this bucket to store all your "ML algorithms and data" and, possibly, even your "web-based interface". Whenever you decide that you no longer need the processing capacity of the EC2, you would unmount the S3 bucket file system from the EC2 instance and terminate that instance. After configuring an appropriate lifecycle rule for the S3 bucket, it would transition to Glacier, or even Glacier Deep Archive [you must considerer the different options of long term storage]. In the future, whenever you want to work with your data again, you would move your data from Glacier back to S3, create a new EC2 instance, install your applications, mount your S3 bucket as a file system and you would have access to all your data. I think this is your least expensive and shortest recovery time objective option. To implement this option, look at my answer to this question; everything you need to use an S3 bucket as a regular folder inside the EC2 instance is there.
The second option provides an integrated solution, meaning the operating system and the data stay together, and allows you to restore everything as it was the day you stopped processing your data. It's made up of the following cycle:
Shutdown your EC2 and make a note of all the specs [you need them further down].
Export your instance to a virtual image, vmdk for example, and store it in your S3 bucket. Something like this:
aws ec2 create-instance-export-task --instance-id i-0d54b0682aa3998a0
--target-environment vmware --export-to-s3-task DiskImageFormat=VMDK,ContainerFormat=ova,S3Bucket=sm-vm-backup,S3Prefix=vms
Configure an appropriate lifecycle rule for the S3 bucket so that it transitions to Glacier, or even Glacier Deep Archive.
Terminate the EC2 instance.
In the future you will need to implement the inverse, so you will need to restore the archived S3 Object [make sure you you can live with the time needed by AWS to do this]
Import the virtual image as an EC2 AMI, something like this [this is not complete - you will need some more options that you saved above]:
aws ec2 import-image --disk-containers
Format=ova,UserBucket="{S3Bucket=sm-vm-backup,S3Key=vmsexport-i-0a1c382e740f8b0ee.ova}"
Create an EC2 instance based on the image and you're back in business.
Obviously you should do some trial runs and even automate the entire process if it's something that will be done frequently. I have a feeling, based on what you said, that the first option is a better option, provided you can easily install whatever applications they use.
I'm assuming that you launched an EC2 instance from a base Amazon Machine Image and then added your own software and models to it. As opposed to launched an EC2 instance from an AWS Marketplace offering.
The simplest thing to do is to create an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) from your running EC2 instance. That will capture the current state of the instance and persist it in your AWS account. Then you can terminate the instance. Later, when you want to recreate it, launch a new instance, selecting the saved AMI instead of a standard AMI.
An alternative is to avoid the need to capture machine state at all, by using standard DevOps practices to revision-control everything you need to recreate the state of a running machine.
Note that there are costs associated with an AMI, though they are minimal ($0.05 per GB-month of data stored, for example).
I had contacted AWS customer care regarding this issue. Given below is the response I received. Please add your comments on which option might be good for me.
Note: I acknowledge the AWS customer care team for their help.
I understand that you require some information on cost saving for your
Instance since you will not be utilizing the service for a while.
To assist you with this I would recommend checking out the Instance
Stop/Start link here:
==>https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/Stop_Start.html .
When you stop an Instance, you do not lose any data & you are not
charged for the resources any further. However please keep in mind
that you will still be charged for any EBS Storage Volumes attached to
the stopped Instance(s).
I also recommend checking out the below links on how you can reduce
your costs.
==>https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/reduce-aws-bill/
==>https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/10-things-you-can-do-today-to-reduce-aws-costs/
That being said, please note that as I am in the billing department,
for the best assistance with the various plans you will require the
assistance of our Sales Team.
The Sales Team will be able to assist with ways to save while
maintaining your configurations.
You will be able to reach the Sales Team here:
==>https://aws.amazon.com/websites/contact-us/.
Once you have completed the details in the link, a member of the team
will be in touch with you at their soonest.
we can take the back up of server which is running in AWS. that is called AMI.
How AWS handles our custom AMI ? where it will be stored ? can we access the Custom AMI Location ? I searched lot but could not get the answer. please let me know if there is any documentation about Custom AMI location. if it stored in S3 buckets can we see it ? or otherwise how can we know about out custom AMI.
An Amazon Machine Image (AMI) is stored in Amazon S3, but it is not directly accessible. Instead, you must use API calls or the Management Console to use an AMI.
The reality is that an AMI might actually contain content from other AMIs -- for example, if you launch an instance from a standard AWS-provided AMI, then add one file and create a new AMI, only the blocks that your instance changed would be stored -- the remaining (unchanged) blocks simply point to the original AMI content. This means that AMIs can often be quite small and you will not pay the cost of storing the complete disk. All of this is invisible to users.
You can see your 'custom' AMI in the AMIs section of the management console, or via the describe_images API call.
i m running ec2 instance in 1 region i want to create snapshots of ec2 instances in other region directly without coping and cross region replication in s3, is this possible? if possible then how?
Amazon EBS Snapshots are created in the same region as the original EBS Volume. They can then be used to create a new Volume within the same Region.
If you wish to use an Amazon EBS Snapshot in a different region, the snapshot must first be copied to the other Region. This can done via the Amazon EC2 management console, the AWS Command-Line Interface (CLI) aws ec2 copy-snapshot command, or an AWS API call.
Please note that snapshots are incremental backups. The first snapshot isn't really a full backup. Rather, every snapshot simply copies any blocks that have been modified since any previous snapshot. Blocks are retained while snapshots still require the blocks. This means that blocks made during the initial snapshot could actually be deleted if they are not required by any active snapshots. This is why I say they are not the same as a full backup, which traditionally never has content deleted.
However, when a snapshot is copied to a new region it is copied in full, rather than incrementally.
If you do not with to copy an EBS snapshot between regions, you would need to find a different way to transfer the disk volume (eg filesystem-level synchronisation).
In fact, there should typically be no need to transfer a disk volume -- rather, your systems should be capable of configuring a new server based upon a startup configuration script and data should be stored in a separate database so that it is accessible to multiple instances. It is a very rare case that requires a complete copy of a disk volume.
I have a php/mysql website that I want to deploy on AWS. Ultimately, I'm going to want auto-scaling (but don't need it right away).
I'm looking at an EBS based AMI. I see that by default the "Root Device Volume" is deleted when an instance "terminates". I realize I can also attach other EBS devices/drives to an instance (that will persist after termination) but I'm going to save most user content in S3 so I dont think that's necessary. I'm not sure how often I'll start/stop vs when i would ever want to terminate. So that's a bit confusing.
I'm mostly confused with where changes to the system get saved. Say I run a YUM install or update. Does that get saved in the "root device volume"? If i stop/start the instance, the changes should be there? What about if I setup cron jobs?
How about if I upload files? I understand to an extent that it depends where I put the files and if I attached a second EBS. Say I just put them in the root folder "/" (unadvised, but for simplicity sake). I guess that they are technically saved in the "root device volume"? If I start/stop the instance, they should still be there?
However, if I terminate an instance, then those changes/uploads are lost. But if I set the "root device volume" to not delete on termination, then I can launch a new instance with the changes there?
In terms of auto-scaling. Someone said to leave the "root device volume" to default delete so that when new instances are spun up/shut down, they don't leave behind zombie EBS volumes that are no longer needed (and would require manual clean-up)?
Would something like this work: ?
Setup S3 bucket (for shared image uploads)
Setup Amazon RDS / mysql
Setup DynamoDB (for sharing php sessions)
Launch EBS-backed AMI (leave as default to delete "root device volume" on
termination). Make system updates using yum/etc. Upload via sftp
PHP/HTML/JS/CSS files (ex: /var/www/html). Validate site can save
images to S3, share sessions via DynamoDB, access mysql via RDS.
Make/clone your own AMI image from your currently running/configured
one. Save it with a name that indicates site version/date/etc.
Setup auto-scaling to launch the image created in #5
I'm mostly concerned with how to save my configuration so that 1) changes are saved in-case i ever need to terminate an instance (before using autoscale) and 2) that auto-scaling will have access to the changes when I'm ready for it. I also don't want something like the same cron-job running on all auto-scaling instances.
I guess I'm confused with "does creating my own AMI image in #4" basically replace the "saving EBS root device volume" on termination? I can't wrap my head around the image part of things vs the storage part of things.
I get even more confused when I read about people talking about if you use "Amazon Linux" then the way they deploy updates every 6 months makes it difficult to use because you are forced to use new versions of software. How does that affect my custom AMI (with my uploaded code)? Can I just keep running yum updates on my custom AMI (for security patches) and ignore any changes to amazon's standard AMIs? When does the yum approach put me at risk for being out-of-date?
I know there are a host of things I'm not covering (dns/static IPs/scaling metrics/etc). That instead of uploading files then creating an AMI image, some people have their machine set to pull files from git on startup (i dont mind my more manual approach for now). Or that i could technically put the php/html/css/js on S3 too.
Sorry for all of the random questions. I know my question might not even be totally clear, but I'm just looking for confirmation/advice in-general. There are so many concepts to tie-together.
Thanks and sorry for the long post!
Yes, if you install packages, upload files, set up cron jobs, etc. and then stop the EBS-based instance, everything will still be there when you restart it.
Consequently, if you create an AMI from that instance and then use it for your autoscaling group, all the instances of the autoscaling group will run the cron jobs.
Your steps look good. As you are creating an AMI, your changes will be saved in that AMI. If the instance is terminated, it can be recreated via the AMI. The modifications made on that instance since the AMI creation will not be saved though. You need to create an AMI or take a snapshot of the EBS volume if you want a backup.
If you make a change and want to apply it to all the instances in the autoscaling group, you need to create a new AMI and apply it to your autoscaling group.
Concerning the cron jobs, I guess you have 2 options:
Have 1 instance that is not part of the autoscaling group running them (and disable the cron jobs before creating the AMI for the autoscaling group)
Do something smart so only one instance of the autoscaling group runs them. Here is the first page I hit on Google: https://gist.github.com/kixorz/5209217 (not tested)
Yes, creating your own AMI image basically replaces the "saving EBS root device volume" on termination.
An EBS boot AMI is an EBS snapshot of the EBS root volume plus some
metadata like the architecture, kernel, AMI name, description, block
device mappings, and more.
(From: AWS Difference between a snapshot and AMI)
Yes, you can automatically run yum security updates. To be completely identical to the latest Amazon Linux AMI, you should run all yum updates (not only security). But I wouldn't run those automatically.
Let me know if I forgot to answer some of your questions or if some points are still unclear.
Why and when exactly should I use EC2 with S3?
I'm using EC2 to install tools like Gitlab and Rundeck. It works fine without S3 storage.
The problem is just if I terminate instances, I'll lose my files?
Short answer: Yes, you can use EC2 without S3. S3 is cloud storage and isn't used for EC2 images.
S3 is used for storing files, such as distributions, backups, and can even be used for static websites.
To answer the second part of your question: when creating storage for a new EC2 instance, uncheck the Delete on Termination, so it will be saved if you ever choose to terminate the EC2 instance.
Be careful though, I've had problems in the past where AWS will not let you reuse volumes that were used with a marketplace image.
EC2 uses EBS, not S3, for storing the volumes. (In fact, I don't exactly know how to make it use anything besides EBS. S3 is used for AMIs, which are basically templates that are copied to EBS when creating an instance.)
Option 1: Don't terminate your instances. Note that terminate means delete, not stop. You can stop them without terminating them.
Option 2: Configure your EBS volumes to not be deleted on termination. The volume will be detached rather than deleted. You can then attach it to another machine later.
You can also attach multiple EBS volumes to an instance, so if you want to save your data only but discard the OS, simply place your data on a secondary volume. The primary volume can be deleted and the secondary volume can be preserved. Delete-on-termination can be configured per-volume.