Build a scalable architecture with Amazon's EC2

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Build a scalable architecture with Amazon's EC2

• Adam Howitt
• www.adamhowitt.com

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About Adam Howitt

• Over 7 years ColdFusion
• 5 ½ years blogging http//www.webdevref.com/blog
• 3 years at Duo Consulting in Chicago
• Independent Consultant since 9/24/07
• Google technologies, SEO, Load testing
• CF, AJAX, JS, MySQL, Apache, SQL Server 2000-2005
• http//www.adamhowitt.com
• WalkJogRun on BlueDragon
• 125,000 running routes worldwide
• Approximately 3,000 visitors per day
• http//www.walkjogrun.net

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I Have Never

• hosed a dev box and had to reinstall
• hosed a prod box and spent all night fixing it
• tried a new patch of a server version and had to
  roll it all back or reinstall
• moved an app to linux without being able to test
  it
• launched an app without load testing because we
  didn't have the time to configure a test machine
  and had it crash

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How Would You Like To

• Try CF8 or BD7?
• New features
• Test existing apps
• Try Ruby on Rails, PHP, MySQL?
• Test your application on Linux machines?
• Cheaper OS, stability, hacker protection
• Load test an application?
• Solve your Slashdot / Wall Street Journal problem?

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Introducing Amazon EC2

• Spin up a basic server for about 2.50 per day /
  0.10 per hour
• Install what you want
• Use the server
• Optionally save a snapshot
• Shut it down

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Basic Server Architecture

• Linux based virtual machines
• 1.7Ghz x86 processor
• 1.75GB of RAM
• 160GB of local disk
• 250Mb/s of network bandwidth
• 0.10 per hour per machine bandwidth

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Other Available Architectures

• Large Instance
• 7.5 GB of memory,
• 4 EC2 Compute Units (2 virtual cores with 2 EC2
  Compute Units each),
• 850 GB of instance storage,
• 64-bit platform
• 0.40 per instance-hour consumed or partial hour
  consumed
• Extra Large Instance
• 15 GB of memory,
• 8 EC2 Compute Units (4 virtual cores with 2 EC2
  Compute Units each),
• 1690 GB of instance storage,
• 64-bit platform
• 0.80 per instance-hour consumed or partial hour
  consumed

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Tools You Need

• Get an Amazon EC2 account
• http//www.amazonaws.com
• Get Putty for Windows
• http//www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/sgtatham/putty/
  
• Get Amazon EC2UI for Firefox
• http//developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/ent
  ry.jspa?entryID609

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Boot a Machine

• Open EC2UI
• Generate a .pem key
• Boot an instance
• amhimages/ubuntu704-apache.manifest.xml

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Login

• SSH Client (Putty)
• Convert Key to .ppk with PuttyGen
• Start Apache
• /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl start
• Test Apache
• http//ec2-67-202-27-135.compute-1.amazonaws.com/i
  ndex.html

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Install ColdFusion

• cd downloads
• chmod x coldfusion-80-lin.bin
• ./coldfusion-80-lin.bin
• /opt/coldfusion8/bin/coldfusion start
• Test ColdFusion RDS
• http//ec2-67-202-27-135.compute-1.amazonaws.com/i
  ndex.cfm
• WinSCP http//winscp.net/
• Logout and shutdown

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Results for 4,000 visits/day site

• Cost Day Month
• Machine instances 2.40 72
• Traffic in and out 0.28 8.40
• Load testing HTML
• Transactions                  23582
  hitsResponse time                  0.01 secs
• Load testing CFM
• Transactions                  19466
  hitsResponse time                  0.12 secs

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The Benefits

• Cheap 80.40 per machine
• Scalable As many servers as you need
• Beefy Upgrade to more virtual processors
• Fault tolerant Failover machines
• No hardware required
• Experiment!

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The Drawbacks

• Non-persistent storage
• Persistent Machine Images
• Random IP Addresses

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Tips for Living Without Persistence

• Install everything you need to persist
• Create boot scripts
• Pull code from source control
• S3 as a mounted drive
• S3.cfc to save and retrieve assets
• MySQL S3
• Bundle and Boot
• http//docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/2007-08-2
  9/GettingStartedGuide/creating-an-image.html

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Tips for Living with unstable IP

• Use the public DNS name
• Have offsite DNS / load balancing
• Use a CNAME e.g. www.walkjogrun.net
• Points to public DNS name
• Avoid using no CNAME e.g. http//walkjogrun.net
• Reduce domain TTL
• Run pound to control images
• http//www.apsis.ch/pound/
• Zeroflux.com articles
• Risk it! 3 weeks with no change

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Dream Architecture

• 2 x Replicated MySQL Servers
• Large instances (4 cores, 7.5 gb RAM each)
• Hourly backups
• 2 x ColdFusion Servers
• Application code in Source control
• Small /Basic instances (1 core, 1.7 gb RAM each)
• Dynamic assets at S3
• Software Load Balancer
• Small /Basic instances (1 core, 1.7gb RAM each)
• Total Cost 11x80 880 per month!

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Summary

• Cheap
• Scalable
• Beefy
• Fault tolerant
• Experiment!

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Questions?

• Adam Howitt
• adam_at_adamhowitt.com
• http//www.adamhowitt.com
• http//www.webdevref.com/blog
• http//www.walkjogrun.net