7/12/16

1

6 Commonly Asked Questions from Customers Building on AWS

Mitch BeaumontAWS Technical ConsultantFanatical Support for AWS, Rackspace

How do I choose the right EC2 instance?

It depends

7/12/16

2

How do I choose the right EC2 instance?

It depends• What are your performance

requirements?• What are you scaling requirements?• What are your budgetary constraints?• When do you need it done by?• How do you measure success?

Feels like this

Or this

7/12/16

3

Feels like this

On a good day

This would be great!

Know your workloadAre you running HPC apps?How large is your working set?Do you need to scale?

7/12/16

4

Know your workloadAre you running HPC apps?How large is your working set?Do you need to scale?

Filter by instance General purposeCompute, Memory, Storage OptimizedGPU, etc

Know your workloadAre you running HPC apps?How large is your working set?Do you need to scale?

Filter by instance General purposeCompute, Memory, Storage OptimizedGPU, etc

Filter by capabilityNetwork IOEBS OptimizedLocal Storage

7/12/16

5

Know your workloadAre you running HPC apps?How large is your working set?Do you need to scale?

Filter by instance General purposeCompute, Memory, Storage OptimizedGPU, etc

Filter by capabilityNetwork IOEBS OptimizedLocal Storage

Profile you applicationEstablish baseline performance envelopeTest with each new instance

Know your workloadAre you running HPC apps?How large is your working set?Do you need to scale?

Filter by instance General purposeCompute, Memory, Storage OptimizedGPU, etc

Filter by capabilityNetwork IOEBS OptimizedLocal Storage

Profile you applicationEstablish baseline performance envelopeTest with each new instance

Punt and go serverlessLambda, S3

7/12/16

6

When does it matter?

Probably not day 1 Maybe year 1

How should I build AMIs for my app?

It dependsWhat tools are you using?

How often do you make updates?How quickly do you need to scale?

What artifacts do you want to maintain?

7/12/16

7

Foundation Dependencies Application Configuration

AMI Anatomy 101

Foundation Dependencies Application Configuration

Operating System

Agents

Logging

Monitoring

AMI Anatomy 101

7/12/16

8

Foundation Dependencies Application Configuration

Operating System

Agents

Logging

Monitoring

Applications

Services

Libraries

Frameworks

AMI Anatomy 101

Foundation Dependencies Application Configuration

Operating System

Agents

Logging

Monitoring

Applications

Services

Libraries

Frameworks

Scripts

Binaries

AMI Anatomy 101

7/12/16

9

Foundation Dependencies Application Configuration

Operating System

Agents

Logging

Monitoring

Applications

Services

Libraries

Frameworks

External Services

Credentials

Database Endpoints

Environment

Scripts

Binaries

AMI Anatomy 101

Flexible Simple

7/12/16

10

Flexible Simple

Foundation

Dependencies

Application

Configuration

Flexible Simple

Foundation

Dependencies

Application

Configuration

Foundation

Dependencies

Application

Configuration

7/12/16

11

Flexible Simple

Foundation

Dependencies

Application

Configuration

Foundation

Dependencies

Application

Configuration

Foundation

Dependencies

Application

Configuration

What metrics are important for my app?It depends• How do you know when there is a

problem today?• What common tasks do you perform

when your app breaks?• What's your biggest challenge with

your application?• What makes your

customers/developers/business happy?

7/12/16

12

The Basics:MemoryDiskComputeHealth

7/12/16

13

The Basics:MemoryDiskComputeHealth

Customers:LatencyResponsivenessAvailabilitySecurity

The Basics:MemoryDiskComputeHealth

Customers:LatencyResponsivenessAvailabilitySecurity

Developers:DependenciesConsistencyCache ratesConnections

7/12/16

14

The Basics:MemoryDiskComputeHealth

Customers:LatencyResponsivenessAvailabilitySecurity

Developers:DependenciesConsistencyCache ratesConnections

Business:OrdersClicksGrowthCapacity

-- Identify key indicators-- Publish metrics

-- Setup alerting-- Create runbooks

-- Build dashboards-- Instrument everything

-- Log it all …

Monitoring best practices

7/12/16

15

How highly available should my app be?

It dependsü What does it mean to be ‘highly available’?ü What is the difference between HA and DR?ü What is your tolerance for operational pain?

Risk is subjectiveAre 3 nines good enough?

Keys to High Availability:• Build in redundancy• Mitigate single points of failure• Externalize state• Monitor performance, health• Fail gracefully• Automate everything• Test everywhere

7/12/16

16

How do I dynamically configure my app?

It dependso What type of state does your app

maintain?o What kinds of configuration does

your app require?o What level of security do you

require?

It’s Not All Unicorns and Rainbows

� The Twelve-Factor App: http://12factor.net/

� The Reactive Manifesto: http://www.reactivemanifesto.org/

� AWS Well-Architected Framework: http://bit.ly/1VH5DNs or https://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/architecture/AWS_Well-Architected_Framework.pdf

� AWS AMI Design: https://d0.awsstatic.com/aws-answers/AWS_AMI_Design.pdf

7/12/16

17

How do I connect my existing network to AWS?

It dependso How and where is your existing

network setup?o What type of data will you be

transferring?o What hardware and skills do you

have available to you?o Is latency and available bandwidth

important?o When do you need to establish

connectivity?

Direct Connect Hardware VPN Software VPN

1 & 10 Gbps.

Cheaper bandwidth.

Predictable Performance.

Lead Times.

Telco. Relationships.

Re-use existing equipment.

AWS Managed VPN endpoints are HA.

Data Transfer charges.

Uses the Internet as a backbone.

Customer managed HA.

Re-use existing equipment.

Re-use existing equipment.

7/12/16

18

Thank You!

To learn more, please visit us at rackspace.com/awsor follow our blog at blog.rackspace.com/aws