I am pretty new to AWS and want to build a simple example auto scaling wordpress application with EC2 instances.
I understand how to create a loadbalancer, how to create bitnami wordpress ec2 instances and a autoscaling group and get all running but here is what i dont get and cannot find in any documentation:
Every EC2 Wordpress instance that i create has obviously its own wordpress data and database. They are not synchronized. So if the Load Balancer sends the Traffic to EC2 A the user will see an other Appplication set then EC2 B.
How do people set this up / solve this to be able to add unlimited ressources which hold the same application / work for the same Application.
Running Wordpress behind a Load Balancer (ELB) is a little bit tricky as by default Wordpress is storing data on volumes of the EC2 instances.
A possible solution:
Use RDS to launch a managed MySQL database and connect Wordpress to it.
Outsource the user uploads to S3 with Wordpress plugins amazon-web-services and amazon-s3-and-cloudfront.
But beware: you need to disable auto-update, the Wordpress theme gallery, ... and everything else that is changing files on a single EC2 instance.
I've written a blog post covering that topic: https://cloudonaut.io/wordpress-on-aws-you-are-holding-it-wrong/ some time ago.
Alternatives:
Use a distributed file system (e.g. GlusterFS) to store all Wordpress files.
Use CloudFront (CDN) to cache incoming requests and run everything on a single EC2 instance.
There is official best practices and blog post. Check here
https://blogs.aws.amazon.com/php/post/Tx1TRYG42UP11ET/WordPress-on-AWS-Whitepapers
Related
I'm new to AWS and deployment. Here's my doubt.
I've a domain, let's say www.company.com. I've 3 apps to deploy,
NodeJS Backend (api.clientName.company.com)
React Marketplace (clientName.company.com)
React Admin Panel (admin.clientName.company.com)
So I'll customize as per clients requirements and deploy like clientName.company.com.
What config should I use for many clients? Now I got 5 more new clients. Can I create only one EC2 instance and manage all clients apps together? Also can I migrate my domains to route53 so that I can create unlimited subdomains?
Can anyone explain my doubts.
Yes, you can manage multiple applications on single EC2 instance, but make sure the instance size is large enough to withstand the traffic.
You can achieve this by using Laravel Forge in which you can deploy Laravel and simple PHP Applications as well. It just makes things easier to manage.
If you not comfortable using Laravel Forge you can use Filezilla too.
It is better if you migrate domains into Route53 as it will be easier to manage and everything will be in one place.
You can create the subdomains as you like and map it to the EC2 instances Elastic IP, make sure you attach an EIP so that the IP address does not change after a reboot.
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 am trying to set up an Amazon Server to host a dynamic website I'm currently creating. I have the domain bought on GoDaddy.com, and I believe that what I've done so far has linked the domain to my Amazon account.
I followed this tutorial : http://www.mycowsworld.com/blog/2013/07/29/setting-up-a-godaddy-domain-name-with-amazon-web-services/
In short, this walked me through setting up and Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) and Amazon Route 53. I then configured the DNS Servers, and my website now launches properly on the domain.
I'm not sure on the next step from here, but I would like to set up:
-A database server
-Anything else that might be necessary to run a dynamic website.
I am very new to hosting websites, and semi-new to web development in general, so the more in depth the better.
Thanks a lot
You have two options on AWS. Run an EC2 server and setup your application or continue to use the AWS managed services like S3.
Flask apps can be hosted on Elastic Beanstalk and
your database can be hosted on RDS (Relational Database Service). Then the two can be integrated.
Otherwise, spin up your own t2.micro instance in EC2. Log in via ssh and set up the database server and application like you have locally. This server could also host the (currently S3 hosted) static files too.
I have no idea what your requirements are, personally I would start with setting up the EC2 instance and go from there as integrating AWS services is without knowing what you need is probably not the easiest first step.
Heroku might be another option. They host their services on AWS and give you an end to end solution for deploying and running your python code without getting your hands dirty setting up servers.
I have an application on an Windows server EC2 with an SQL server for our database.
What I would like to do is an load balancer so the application won't fail due to overload.
I have a couple of questions that Im not certain about it.
I believe that i need to create an image of my current instance and duplicate it. my problem is that my database is based on my current instance so it would duplicate my database as well.
Do I need another instance just for my database?
If yes, then it means that I need a total of 3 instances. 2 for the application and 1 for the database.
In this case I need to change my application to connect to the new instance database instead of the current database.
After all that happens I need to add a load balancer.
I hope I made myself clear.
I would recommend using RDS (http://aws.amazon.com/rds/) for this. This way you don't have to worry about the database server and just host your application server on EC2 instances. Your AMI will then contain just the application server and thus when you scale up you will be launching additional app servers only and not database servers.
Since you are deploying a .NET application, I would also recommend taking a look at Elastic Beanstalk (http://aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/) since it will really help to make auto scaling much easier and your solution will scale up/down as well as self-heal itself.
As far the load balancer is concerned, you can either manually update your load balancer will the new instances of your application server or you can let your auto scale script do it for you. If you go for ElasticBeanstalk, then Elastic Beanstalk will take care of adding/removing instances to/from your Elastic Load Balancer for you on its own.
As I understand I can use EC2 as web server for my application. But how load balancer is working?
For example I have one EC2 instance. In this way load balancer will not work. Am I right?
For example I have few EC2 instances. In this way I can configure load balancer to balance between all my EC2 servers.
Am I right?
Application files at all instances should be synced? Is there is any Amazon tool to sync? Or I should use something like rsync or post commit hooks to sync files between EC2 instances?
Is it possible to use one EC2 instance for web application (php + nginx) and for CDN (Cloud Front)? Or what is the better way to reach this: I need to store static files but I should access them from web application (php scripts) through file system. So I am going to use EC2 and Clod Front. But how can I get access?
Thanks for your time.
Technically, the load belancer will work, it's just that it'll only balance the traffic to one instance.
Correct. You register the instances with the elastic load balancer, and whilst those instances are healthy - it will respond to them.
There's many different ways to sync files - it all depends on what you want to sync. Cloud Architecture is a little different to traditional architecture. For example, rather than loading the images onto the EBS volume, you'd try and offload them (and serve them) from S3. Therefore the only things you'd need to "sync" would be the webserver files themselves. You could use CloudFormation to roll out updates, post commit hooks and rsync are also good options. The challenge is to remember that it can scale / fail almost at will - so you need to ensure that each instance knows how to get the information and keep itself updated in isolation.
Yes. It's called a custom origin. What you want to do though is put a url rewrite on the outbound server that rewrites the local urls to cloudfront domains.
Hope that helps