Cloud 101

Amazon Web Services

Getting Started

A Simple Definition

At a basic level Cloud Computing is a collection of:

• Compute

• Storage

• Networking

Resources that can be consumed on demand.

Cloud vs Traditional DC

Cloud

Advantages

• Flexible Infrastructure

– Quick to provision

• “On demand” servers

– Power on/off as you need

• Pay as you go service

– Public cloud only

Disadvantages

• Lack of physical access

Traditional Data Centres

Advantages

• Complete Control

Disadvantages

• Wasted Resources

• Long lead times for new

equipment

• Always on Infrastructure

Problems in a Traditional DC

• You need to plan capacity carefully

• Often an unknown quantity

• Best guess

• Finite resource

• Limited ability to burst

• Wasted resource

AWS Platform

Physical Infrastructure

Core Cloud Services

Enterprise Apps

Platform As A Service (PaaS)

Offerings A

P

I

Tools

Libraries

Infrastructure As A Service (IaaS)

Deployment

Tools

AWS PlatformEnterprise Apps

A

P

I

Infrastructure As A Service (IaaS)

Regions Availability Zones

AWS Console

CLI Tools

Java, JS, Python,

PHP

.NET, Ruby,

Node.js, iOS,

Android

SDK’s

Compute Storage Networking Security Control

Databases Analytics App Services Mobile

Services

Deployment

Tools

AWS PlatformWorkSpaces Zocalo

A

P

I

Infrastructure As A Service (IaaS)

Regions Availability Zones

AWS Console

CLI Tools

Java, JS, Python,

PHP

.NET, Ruby,

Node.js, iOS,

Android

SDK’s

Compute Storage Networking Security Control

Getting Started

• Sign up for free!

• Use the free usage tier's

– Try “most” AWS products for free

– The Console alerts you when its not free

Free Tier

Free Tier

Free Tier

Billing Alerts

Even if you are careful sometimes you can incur charges, so its best to set up a

billing alert as your first task.

• Billing alerts will email you if you exceed a certain value

• You can even alert if you go $0.01 over the free tier usage

• It’s a simple 9 step process found here:• http://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/create-billing-alarm.html

What to build?The free tier is good for simple, low to moderate usage websites

Perfect to try a WordPress Blog with the following components:

• EC2 Linux Server (running apache)

• I recommend Amazon Linux as a a t2.micro

• RDS MySQL Database

• Choose the none multi-AZ deployment and db.t2.micro

• Elastic Load Balancer (not needed as only one server but

good to learn)

• S3 Storage (For storing files uploaded to WordPress)

• CloudFront (Optional but good for taking pressure off the

server)

• SES (for sending emails to users)

• Identity controls

• IAM for user access

Guide: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/hosting-wordpress.html

Taking WordPress FurtherThe previous guide only goes so far, so have a play and add in the extra

services. Try using RDS instead of installing MySQL. You’ll get a better

performing website. You should end up with something like this:

Taking WordPress FurtherThese building blocks aren’t that different to a full scale deployment to run very

large sites. There are just more parts. You’ve now got all the skills to do this.

Resources• AWS Sign Up

– http://aws.amazon.com/

• AWS Free Tier Information– http://aws.amazon.com/free/

• AWS Billing Alerts– http://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/create-billing-alarm.html

• AWS Documentation– http://aws.amazon.com/documentation/

• Running WordPress on AWS– http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/hosting-wordpress.html

• AWS Plugins for WordPress:– S3 / CloudFront

• W3 Total Cache: https://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/

– SES• WP-SES: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-ses/

• Forums + Meetup Groups

• Official Forum:– https://forums.aws.amazon.com/index.jspa

• AWS User Group East– http://www.meetup.com/AWS-User-Group-East/