Talk about “The Cloud” is everywhere.
The question I get is: “How do I use ‘the cloud’ for my business?”
More specifically: “How do I use Amazon’s EC2 and S3 for my business?”
About 18 months ago we switched the hosting for my blog to use Amazon EC2 Cloud Computing and Amazon S3 Cloud storage.
It wasn’t simple.
(since…we’ve moved everything over to Amazon’s web services)
Why I moved to “the cloud”
My goals with moving my blog to “the cloud” were to:
- understand how to use the cloud effectively
- document how to use amazons cloud
- see how much it would cost (about $80/month to host my blog, which gets between 1000-2000 visits per day, and runs LOTS of bandwidth with all the videos)
- and make everything accessible to people who maybe don’t have a tech staff
My experience setting it up
I had one of my GUYS set up everything and document every step of the way.
He did an amazing job of it.
We’ve been running my wordpress blog on amazon’s EC2 cloud for about 18 months and have learned A LOT!
We’ve been through crashes, downtime, expensive time, and now cheap time.
We’ve figured out things to do and things not to do.
Documentation for how to use Amazon’s cloud computing
Amazon EC2/S3 Cloud Computing How To Document
It’s VERY ROUGH!
It’s VERY TECHNICAL!
We’ll create more versions as I get feedback from people.
You’ll notice 2 things about the doc:
- The dates on the title page are older. We’ve updated the document, we just haven’t updated the title page.
- It’s written by a Filipino. He’s a programmer, not an english major! (you’ll laugh at some of the language
Who this is for (and who it’s NOT for)
This document is for you if:
- you’re technically inclined
- you want to use “the cloud” but don’t want to spend all the time figuring stuff out
- you’re interested in using reliable dedicated servers at a reasonable price
This document isn’t for you if:
- you struggle with FTP
- the word “server” scares you
- you’re not making money with your current website
Why I’m doing this
I want feedback!
I know the document is rough.
I want a few people to follow it and implement what it goes through in their business. Take notes and let me know what’s missing, what you don’t understand, and how you figured it out.
I’m interested in making this document a more thorough guide so more people can take advantage of this resource for their business.
If using this interests you, read through it. See if it’s way over your head. See if it makes sense. See if anything jumps out at you immediately as being lacking.
I hope to make this a guide which more people can use.
It’s free!
If you use it, use the contact form to let me know what’s wrong or what you like about it.
Also, feel free to leave comments of things you find which you believe will help people.
Great material John,
Appreciate sharing such a valuable info with us.
Wow. Been looking for that kind of info. Thanks a bunch John! Will look into it and let you know how it went.
I've had to figure this stuff out step by step, this really is a great explanation and introduction to Amazon's services (the english isn't that bad either!), I'd say perfect for those with basic knowledge of server admin, would have saved me hours back then!
Suggestions on expanding this:
* how to save your AMIs, so that you don't have to set it up each time you lose a VM
* connecting VMs to EBS
I just read through the document. It is well documented. Thanks for providing this. You should note that this is for Windows users. Linux & Mac users won't need to deal with PuTTy, KeyGen, or WinSCP. Also, I really like the very last page.
Great thanks, although it makes me login as ec2-user not root.
Then some commands need to start with sudo to make it run as root.
eg.
yum install httpd
becomes
sudo yum install httpd
also unless I missed a step you need
sudo /etc/ini.d/mysqld start
otherwise running
mysql
will give you an error rather than mysql command prompt.
Other than that great!
Hi! I was surfing arround on Bing and found this website. I like the articles! I also have a website . Please feel free to leave a comment there.
I searched all over for this type of guide in the past. I am sick of maxing out my hosting accounts. I wish I had this a few days ago. I just upgraded one of my hosting accounts to a new server. Oh well that will get maxed out soon so this will come in use.