Sage CRM 7 Amazon EC2 Deployment

8/6/2019 Sage CRM 7 Amazon EC2 Deployment

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v7 Amazon EC2 CloudDeployment Guide


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Copyright 2010 Sage Technologies Limited, publisher of this work. All rights reserved.

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Use of the software programs described herein and this documentation is subject to the End User Licence Agreement enclosed in

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Sage CRM Version 7 Amazon EC2 Cloud Deployment

Executive Summary

ThisdocumentdetailsthetasksnecessarytodeploySageCRMVersion7ontoAmazonEC2Cloud.

What is Amazon EC2 Cloud?

Amazon EC2Cloud isa fullymanagedhostingplatformaccessedbyAmazonsweb service calledElasticCompute

Cloud (EC2). Itprovides theability to runvirtualWindowsandLinux servers inAmazonsdatacentresaround the

world.EC2isbuiltontopofanotherofAmazonswebservicesSimpleStorageService(S3)whichprovidesthedata

storagelayerforEC2. Figure1isaverysimplifiedoutlineofEC2andS3.

Figure1: AmazonCloudEnvironmentoverview.

Why would a customer want it?

EC2provides apayasyougowithnominimum charge infrastructure thatwillallow you todeliver SageCRM for

prospectsveryrapidlywithnohardware investment. YoucanhaveacleanSageCRMonline installrunningonthe

webwithin30minutesfromstarting.

Careful selection of AMI (i.e. onewith an associated Elastic Block Store) is required to ensure customer data is

persistedwhen an AMI is restarted. Installing andmanaging Amazon Cloud customer installations is therefore

sufficientlycomplexforSMEstodelegateittoaBusinessPartner. Itis,however,wellwithinthecapabilitiesofaSage

CRMPartner. IbelievethatthisthereforepresentsapotentialrevenueopportunityforSageCRMBusinessPartners.


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EC2 Pricing Options

AmazonEC2havetwopricingoptions. OnDemandpricing isgreat forDemos,ProofofConceptdevelopmentand

scalabilitytesting. ReservedInstancesareruntimeAMIsthatareintendedtoruncontinuously. Theyofferacheaper

optionforproductioninstallsthatareruncontinuouslyforyears.

Thelatestpricingcanbefoundhere:https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/ .Asof16March2010thepricesfortheUS

EastCoastwereasfollows:

OnDemand

ReservedInstances


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EC2 Component Terminology

ThemostimportantconceptsaBusinessPartnerneedstounderstandaretheAMIandInstance. Amazonprovidesan

onlineManagementConsoleforadministeringtheCloud,calledtheAWSManagementConsole. Figure2showsthe

AWSManagementConsolelogindashboard.

Figure2:AWSManagementConsole

1. AmazonMachineImage(AMI)TheAMIisthemasterimagetemplatethatyoulaunchinstancesof. TheAMIisanalogoustoaVMWaresnapshot.

ThereareafewtypesofAMIs:

AmazonProvidedAMIAmazonprovidesasetofpubliclyavailableLinuxandWindowsbaseimagesthatyoucanuseasastartingpoint.

OtherPublicAMIsVariouscompaniesandindividualshavemadetheirAMIspubliclyavailable. UserCreatedAMIOnceyouvebuiltandcustomizedyourSageCRMsystem,youcancreateyourown

bundleofthemachine. YourbundlecanbeusedtoregisteranewAMI. ThisisanewAMIthatyoucanuse

asanewmasterimage. ThisAMIwillbeprivatetoyouunlessyouchoosetoshareitwithanotheruser. This

couldbeagoodwaytopackageverticalSageCRMcustomisations.

SharedAMIUserscaneasilysharetheirAMIswithotherusers. Forexample,SageTechnologiesismakingaSageCRMAMIavailabletoselectedpartners.


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WerecommendthataPartneruseaSageCRMsharedAMItobeginwith. ThepartnercanuseanAmazonprovided

AMI iftheywanttocreatetheirownverticalcustomisationwhentheyhavereachedagood levelofunderstanding

andexperiencewiththeAmazonCloud.

CreatingYourOwnAMI(Bundle)

YoucaneasilycreateyourownAMI(bundle)fromanexistingimagethatyouhavecustomized. Bundlesaresimilarto

VMwaresnapshots. Bundlingisaprocessusedtocreateanewimagefromarunningonesoyoudontneedtodoany

furtherinstallationconfigurationeachtimeyouneedtouseaserver. ThenewAMIcanbesharedwithotherusers.

AMIBundlesarestoredinAmazonsSimpleStorageServices(S3)environment. AdditionalS3storagecostsapplyto

holdthenewAMI. SeemoredetailsbelowontheS3environment.

Itishighlyrecommendedthatyoucreateanewbundleatvariousstagesofdevelopmentsoyoualwayshaveapoint

intimeyoucanrevertbacktowithouthavingtostartcompletelyover.

Forcompletedetailsoncreatingandmanagingbundles/AMIs,visit:

http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/bundling anamiwindows.html

2. InstancesAfteranAMIislaunched,theresultingrunningsystemiscalledaninstance. TheInstanceistheactualrunningvirtual

machine.

InstanceTypes(HardwareConfigurations)

StandardInstances

Instancesofthisfamilyarewellsuitedformostapplications.

m1.small SmallInstance(Default)1.7GBofmemory,1EC2ComputeUnit(1virtualcorewith1EC2ComputeUnit),160GBofinstancestorage,32bitplatform

m1.large LargeInstance7.5GBofmemory,4EC2ComputeUnits(2virtualcoreswith2EC2ComputeUnitseach),850GBofinstancestorage,64bitplatform

m1.xlarge ExtraLargeInstance15GBofmemory,8EC2ComputeUnits(4virtualcoreswith2EC2Compute

Units

each),

1690

GB

of

instance

storage,

64

bit

platform

HighCPUInstances

InstancesofthisfamilyhaveproportionallymoreCPUresourcesthanmemory(RAM)andarewellsuitedfor

computeintensiveapplications.

c1.medium HighCPUMediumInstance1.7GBofmemory,5EC2ComputeUnits(2virtualcoreswith2.5EC2ComputeUnitseach),350GBofinstancestorage,32bitplatform

c1.xlarge HighCPUExtraLargeInstance7GBofmemory,20EC2ComputeUnits(8virtualcoreswith2.5EC2ComputeUnitseach),1690GBofinstancestorage,64bitplatform

EC2ComputeUnit(ECU)OneEC2ComputeUnit(ECU)providestheequivalentCPUcapacityofa1.01.2

GHz2007Opteronor2007Xeonprocessor.

Moreoninstancetypescanbefoundhere:http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance types/


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EC2 Security

AmazonEC2enablesthefirewalltobeextensivelyconfiguredbymeansofSecurityGroups. TheEC2firewallallows

youtoassignyourinstancestouserdefinedgroupsanddefinefirewallrulesforthesegroups.Asinstancesareadded

orremoved,theappropriaterulesareenforced. Similarly,ifyouchangearuleforagroup,thechangesare

automatically appliedtoallmembersofthegroup. Figure3showsatypicaldefaultfirewallsetup.

Figure3:DefaultFirewallconfiguration

Asecuritygroupisanamedcollectionofaccessrules.Theseaccessrulesspecifywhichincomingnetworktraffic

shouldbedeliveredtoyourinstance.Allotheringresstrafficwillbediscarded. Youcanmodifyrulesforagroupat

anytime.Thenewrulesareautomaticallyenforcedforallcurrentlyrunninginstancesandinstanceslaunchedinthe

future.

Whenyou launchanAMI instance,youcanassign ittoasmanygroupsasyou like. Ifnogroupsarespecified, the

instanceisassignedtothedefaultgroup.Bydefault,thisgroupallowsallnetworktrafficfromothermembersofthis

groupanddiscardstrafficfromotherIPaddressesandgroups.Ifthisdoesnotmeetyourneeds,youcanmodifythe

rulesettingsofthedefaultgroup.

ConfiguringFirewallSettings

Forcompletedetailsonsettingupfirewallsecuritygroupsandaccessrules,visit:

http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using networksecurity.html


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EC2 Scalability

ElasticIPAddress

WheneveranAMIinstanceisrestarted,anewDHCPIPAddressandassociatedDNSmappingareassignedtothe

instance. ThismeansthatallSageCRMuserswouldhavetobecontactedwithanewURLtologintoeverytimethe

serverisrestarted. Figure4showsatypicaldynamicIP/DNSmapping:

Figure4: RunninginstancedynamicURL.

ToavoidthiswecanallocateastaticIPaddressforourcustomerthatismappedtotherunningIPAddress/DNSname.

WemustpayausagefeeforthestaticIP. AmazoncallsthisanElasticIP. AnotherusefulaspectofusinganelasticIP

isthatitenablesustomapthisstaticIPtoaDNSnameinourDNSservertohidethefactthatSageCRMisrunningin

the

Amazon

Cloud.


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NotethatwheneverwerestartanAMIinstance,wemustexplicitlyremaptheElasticIPtotherunningserver

instance. Figure5showsatypicalElasticIPmapping.

Figure5:ElasticIPmapping.

So,insteadofusingthebaseURLfortheinstance(thatchangeseverytimetheAMIisrestarted):

http://ec218473220218.compute1.amazonaws.com/CRM/eware.dll/UK

WeusethemappedelasticIPURL(thatstaysthesamenomatterhowmanytimestheAMIisrestarted):

http://184.73.220.218/CRM/eware.dll/UK

Andwecouldmap184.73.220.218toauserfriendlyDNSname,suchas:

http://mybusinessdomainname/CRM/eware.dll/UK


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OrtoTinyURL:

http://tinyurl.com/sagecrm7demo

ElasticBlockStore(EBS)

Bydefault,anAMIrunswithlocalstorage. Thislocalstorageisdeletedwhentheinstanceisrestarted. ForSageCRM

instances,wemustensurethatweselectanAMIwithanassociatedEBStopersisttheSageCRMdataacrossrestarts.

WeselectanAMIwithablockstorebyexplicitlysearchingtheAMIlistforEBSAMIsasshowninfigure6below.

Figure

6:

Search

for

Windows

EBS

AMI

images

supplied

by

Amazon.

AmazonEBSvolumesprovideoffinstancestoragethatpersistsindependentlyfromthelifeofaninstance.Amazon

EBSvolumesarehighlyavailable,highlyreliablevolumesthatcanbeattachedtoarunningAmazonEC2instanceand

areexposedasstandardblockdevices.AmazonEBSvolumesoffergreatlyimproveddurabilityoverlocalAmazonEC2

instancestores,asAmazonEBSvolumesareautomatically replicatedonthebackend(inasingleAvailability Zone).

Forthosewantingevenmoredurability,AmazonEBSprovidestheabilitytocreatepointintimeconsistentsnapshots

ofyourvolumesthatarethenstoredinAmazonS3,andautomatically replicatedacrossmultipleAvailabilityZones.


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ThesesnapshotscanbeusedasthestartingpointfornewAmazonEBSvolumes,andcanprotectyourdataforlong

termdurability.

TheEBSstorageassociatedwithanAMIisshownintheVolumesscreenasshowninFigure7below.

Figure7:MappedEBSvolumestoourruntimeAMIimages.


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Other EC2 Tools and Administration UI Options

ApartfromtheAmazonAWSManagementConsole,thereareanumberofthirdpartyandopensourcetoolsfor

managingtheAmazonCloud. ApopularalternativeforFirefoxusersisElasticFox. Figure8showsthesame

informationasAWSinElasticFox.

Figure8:ElasticFox


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AnotherpopularpluginforFirefoxistheS3FoxtooltomanagethebackingS3storage. Figure9showsaviewofS3

Fox.

Figure9:S3Fox.

Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet. The S3 environment iswherebundles (AMIs)are stored. Additional S3

storage costs apply tohold thenewAMI. S3 can alsobeused to store installation files andother files for your

instances.


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Example Deployment of Sage CRM in Amazon EC2

ThefollowingsectiondemonstratesastepbystepexampleofhowtoinstallSageCRMVersion7inAmazonEC2from

scratch. Inthisexample,wewilluseabareAmazonAMIratherthanapreinstalledSageCRMAMItodemonstrate

thewholeprocess.

Beforeyoustart CustomersandBusinessPartnersareresponsibleformanagingtheirownEC2cloudinstancesviatheAmazon

WebServices(AWS)ManagementConsole.Thisincludescustomeraccountactivity,security,accountcharges

andallaccountconfiguration.ItwillnotbepossibletobillyourcustomersdirectlyfromAmazonEC2.

SageTechnologiesandSageOpCoshaveno involvement intherelationshipbetween theBusinessPartnerandtheAmazonEC2cloud.

IfBusinessPartnersneedtosignupforanEC2account.This isdescribed inbriefbelow.More informationcanbefoundathttp://aws.amazon.com/ec2/

SageCRM issues in thecloudshouldbe logged in theusualway,escalatingup to theSageOpCosupportchannelasanOnPremisecase.TheEnvironmentOSonthecaseshouldbesettoAmazonEC2instance.

The following video introduces the Amazon Web Services Management Console:http://media.amazonwebservices.com/console/AwsConsole.html ,

and

is

worth

watching

before

you

get

started.


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1. SignUptoAmazonEC2foranaccount

YouwillneedaspecificuserlogontoAmazonEC2. StartbyregisteringwithAWS:


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2. CreateaKeypair

ThekeypairisaPKIsecuritypolicytoprotectyourinstanceandassociatedEBSdatafromotherAmazonusers. All

runninginstancesandbundledAMIsareprotectedwithyourkeypair.

Note:BeforecreatingaKeyPair,pleasemakesuretheFileDownloadoptionisenabledinInternetExplorer.Whenyou

receivetheprompttodownloadthePrivateKeyPairencryptionfile,pleasesaveitinasecureplace.Youwillbeasked

foritwhenyouretrievethedefaultWindowspasswordfortheAMIimage,andyoucannotdownloadthefileagain.

CreateakeypairbyclickingtheCreateKeypairbuttononthetoolbar:

Fillinthekeyname. Amazonwillgenerateapublicandprivatekeypair. Thepublickeywillbeuploadedand

controlledbytheAmazonEC2platformandyouwillseetheprivatekeylistedinyourAWSConsole.


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3. SelectanAMIwithabackingEBS

LogintotheAWSConsolewithyouremailaddressandpassword. SearchforaWindows32bitAMIwithbackingEBS:

Forthisexamplewewillchoosethelowcost32bitWindowsServer2003withSQLExpressRDBMS.


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4. StarttheAMIInstance

SelecttheAMIcheckboxandclicktheLaunchbuttoninthetoolbar. Acceptthedefaultsettings(Smallinstance,etc):


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5. RemotelogintotheAMIInstance

YouwillfirstneedtogettheServeradministratorpasswordbeforeremoteloggingintotheinstance:

Beforeattemptingtogettheadminpassword,givetheinstance5to10minutestostartup.


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Youwillneedtoenteryourprivatekeyintothecheckboxtodecryptthepassword:

Note: IfyougetanIEprompttostoprunningthescriptduringdecryption,selectNo.


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Makesureyoucopythepasswordsomewheresafeasyouwillnotbeabletogetitagainonceyouconfigurethe

instance.


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Nowremotelogintotheserver:


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6. UploadtheSageCRMInstaller

YouwillneedtohaveasoftcopyoftheSageCRMinstallerCD. Youcanuseanymethodtouploadtheinstaller,FTP,

WinSCP,Filezilla,etc. IpreferWinSCP. YouwillprobablywanttoturnoffIEEnhancedSecuritytemporarilyinorderto

maketheuploadlesstedious.


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7. ConfiguretheAMIinstanceforSageCRM

NowweneedtoconfigureSQLServerandIISforSageCRMtoworkproperlyintheCloud.

StartbyenablingTCP/IPonSQLServerExpresstoport1433


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NowsetServerauthenticationtoSQLServerandWindowsAuthentication mode:


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Nowchangethesauserpasswordandenableforlogin:

RestartSQLServerandtestthatyoucanloginassawiththenewpasswordyoujustset.


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BydefaultIISwillhaveASPprohibited. EnableASPinIISManager:


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8. InstallSageCRMontheAMIInstance

NowwecaninstallSageCRM.


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Itiscriticalthatyousetthedatabasetolocalhost. ThisisbecausethedatabasenamechangeseverytimetheAMI

instanceisrestarted(astheAMIcanberunonanyVMinanyphysicalserverwithintheAmazonEC2Cloud

infrastructure):

Ifyouchoosetheactualmachinename(thedefaultpresented),thenyouwillfindSCRMwillfailtostartupwhentheAMIinstanceisrestarted. Thiscanbefixedlaterbutitismuchbettertoavoidthatsituationbysettingthemachine

nametolocalhostnow.


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Theinstallshouldnowcompleteasnormal:


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9. Checktheinstallworks

FromtheAWSconsole,copythePublicDNSandmakeupaSageCRMURLasfollows:

http://ec21847390172.compute1.amazonaws.com/CRM/eware.dll/UK


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Checkthatthisinstallworksfromabrowser:


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Loginusingadminandthedemopersonausersandtestthattheapplicationworksasexpectedincludingthe

Interactivedashboard:

Congratulations! YouhavesuccessfullydeployedSageCRMtotheCloud.


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Wearenotfinishedhowever.Whileyoucanusetheaboveinstanceasademo,youcannotrealisticallyuseitin

production. ThisisbecausetheURLwillhavetochangeiftheinstanceisrestarted.

Letsdemonstratethis. GototheAWSconsoleandrestarttheinstance(StopfollowedbyStartnotreboot):


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Waitfor5to10minutesfortheinstancetoreboot. Youcancheckthattheserverhasfullyrebootedbyremote

connectingtoityouwillnotbeabletoremoteconnectuntiltheserverhasfullyrebooted.

NotethatthepublicDNShaschanged:


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ThenrefreshthebrowsershowingSageCRMearlier:


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ChangetheURLtothenewPublicDNSname:


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10. AllocateanElasticIPAddresstotheinstall

ThesituationwheretheinstanceURLchangeseverytimeitisrestartedisobviouslyaseriousissueforproduction. We

cansolvethisproblembyallocatingastaticElasticIPtotheinstance. Letsdoitnow. SelecttheElasticIPsmenu. If

therearenoexistingelasticIPsyouwillbepromptedtoallocateone. Nowyouneedtoassociatetheallocatedstatic

IPwithyourinstance:


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NowchangetheURLintheSageCRMlogintothisstaticIP:

Logonasapersonaandcheckthatyoucanaccesstheapplicationasbefore.


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Restarttheinstanceasbefore.WhentheinstancehasstartedupyoumustreassociatetheElasticIPwiththe

instanceagaintoreestablishtheIPmappingtothenewinstancePublicIP/DNS:


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CheckthatthesameURLwiththeelasticIPsuccessfullyworksirrespectiveofthenewinstancePublicDNS.

11. ConfigureyourDNSorTinyURL

Finally,youcanmaptheElastic IPeithertoyourDNS ifyouwanttohidetheAmazonCloudbehindyourcompany

websiteorsimplymakeitintoaTinyURL.


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Sage CRM 7 Amazon EC2 Deployment