We have a Java EE application (EAR file deployed on JBoss, MySQL, MongoDB) which we would like to deploy on an Amazon EC2 instance. I have several questions regarding deployment best practices.
What is the most commonly used Linux AMI which we can rely on for a robust deployment (There are so many Linux variants, and I am not sure which AMI is commonly used, is it Fedora, CentOS, Red Hat, SUSE ...)
How do we handle production upgrades (EAR file modifications or schema upgrades). Are there any tools which are available to handle this installation or rollback of these changes.
What kind of data backup capability is available for the database?
Should I rely on Amazon RDS for MySQL support?
How should I handle support for MongoDB?
This is the first time, I am hosting an web-app and would appreciate some inputs on how to manage the production instance.
I agree with Mark Robinson's answer: Use whichever Unix variant you're most comfortable with. It may pay to pick one with decent cloud support. For my site I use Ubuntu.
I have a common image which is the base of every version deploy I do. I have www.mysite.com pointing to an Elastic IP so I can decide which instance it goes to. The common image has all the software I need installed (Postgres/Postgis/Tomcat/etc) but the database and web server data folders and symlinked to Elastic Block Store (EBS) instances.
When it comes time to do a deploy I start a new instance up, freeze and snapshot the EBS volumes on production and make new volumes. I point my new instance at the new volumes and then install whatever I need to onto that. Once I've smoke tested everything successfully I can switch the Elastic IP to point to the new instance and everything keeps on going.
I'll note that I currently have the advantage where only I can modify the database; no users can. This will become a problem shortly.
If you use the XFS filesystem on top of the EBS volume then you can tell XFS to freeze the file system (so no updates happen) then call the EC2 api to snapshot the volume then unfreeze the file system. The result is that the snapshot is taken quickly and sent to S3. I have a nightly script which does this.
If RDS looks like it will suit your needs then use it. Amazon is building lots of solid tools quickly and this will ease your scalability issues if you have any.
I'm sorry, I have no idea.
Good question!
1) I would recommend going with whatever Linux variant you are most comfortable with. If you have someone who is really keen on CentOS, go with that. Once you have selected your AMI, take it and customize it by configuring how you want it. Then save that AMI as you base-layout. It will make rolling out new machines much easier and save your bacon if EC2 goes down.
2) Upgrades with EC2 can be tres cool. Instead of upgrading a live system, take your pre-configured AMI, update that and save that AMI as myAMI-1.1 (or whatever). That way, you can flip over to the new system almost instantly AND roll back to a previous version in case something breaks. You can also back-up DB instances to S3. It's cheap at about $0.10/GB/Month.
3) It depends where you are storing your DB. If you are storing it on your EC2 instance you are in trouble. The EC2 instances have no persistence storage. So if your machine crashes, you lose everything. I'm not familiar with Amazon DB system but you should also look into Elastic Block Store. It's basically an actual hard-drive you can write to. When you want to upgrade your schema, do a full DB dump to S3 and then do an upgrade of your actual schema. If something goes wrong, you can pull the previous version out of S3.
4) & 5) I have never used those so I can't help you.
What is the most commonly used Linux AMI which we can rely on for a robust deployment (There are so many Linux variants, and I am not sure which AMI is commonly used, is it Fedora, CentOS, Red Hat, SUSE ...)
How do we handle production upgrades (EAR file modifications or schema upgrades). Are there any tools which are available to handle this installation or rollback of these changes.
What kind of data backup capability is available for the database?
Should I rely on Amazon RDS for MySQL support?
How should I handle support for MongoDB?
Any Linux AMI will do the job, what you need is a JRE only. (assuming development work not required). If you need to monitor the JVM behavior then get JConsole installed.
Easiest and painless way is to SSH into the local home directory, transfer the updated class file/EAR file (depends the number of changes applied) and copy and replace into the Tomcat deployment directory, restart apache. (make sure you tested locally before upload to production).
Depends on which database you are using, if you are using MySQL then just do scheduled backup that writes to your home directory so that from time to time you could SSH in and download a copy for backup purpose.
I would not consider reply on Amazon RDS for MySQL support due to 2 reasons: MySQL is small enough and manageable, and also I would want to have total complete control of the database and why pay for more when you can do it yourself FOC?
The usage of MongoDB should be align with the purpose of your application and benefits you gain from that. I would recommend you use MongoDB for static data retrieval like state, country, area etc... where MySQL to be use for transaction data only.
If you can live with deploying your Java EE application on TomEE instead of JBoss, Boxfuse does what you want.
For you Java EE application you literally only have to execute (TomEE uses war files instead of ear files):
boxfuse run my-tomee-app-1.0.war -env=prod
This will
Create AMI containing TomEE and your application ready to boot
Create an Elastic IP or ELB
Create a security group with the correct ports defined
Create an auto-scaling group
Launch your instance(s)
Any subsequent update will be done as a zero downtime blue/green deployment.
More info: https://boxfuse.com/blog/javaee-aws
Related
I'm struggling with finding out how to properly test stuff on my local PC and then transfer that over to production.
So here is my situation:
I got a project in NodeJS/typescript, and I'm using Prisma in it for managing my database. On my server I just run a MySQL database, and for testing on my PC I always just used SQLite.
But now that I want to use Prisma Migrate (because it's highly recommended to do so in production) I can't because I use different databases on my PC vs on my Server. Now here comes my question, what is the correct way to test with a database during development?
Should I just connect to my server and make a test database there? Use VS Code's SSH coding function to code directly on the server and connect to the database? Install MySQL on my PC? Like, what's the correct way to do it?
Always use the same brand and same version database in development and testing that you will eventually deploy to. There are compatibility differences between brands, i.e. an SQL query that works on SQLite does not necessarily work the same on MySQL, and vice-versa. Even data types and schema definitions aren't all the same between different SQL products.
If you use different SQL databases in development and production, you will waste a bunch of time and increase your gray hair debugging problems in production, as you insist, "it works on my machine."
This is avoidable!
When I develop on my local computer, I usually have an instance of MySQL Server running in a Docker container on my laptop.
I assume any test data on my laptop is temporary. I can easily recreate schema and data at any time, using scripts that are checked into my source control repo, so I don't worry about losing any data. In fact, I feel no hesitation to drop it and recreate it several times a week.
So if I need to upgrade the local database version to match an upgrade on production, I just delete the Docker container and its data, pull the new Docker image version, initialize a new data dir, and reload my test data again.
Every step is scripted, even the Docker pull.
The caveat to my practice is that you can't necessarily duplicate the software if you use cloud databases, for example Amazon Aurora. There's no way to run an Aurora-compatible instance on your laptop (and don't believe the salespeople that Aurora is fully compatible with MySQL; it's not). So you could run a small Aurora instance in a development VPC and connect to that from your app development environment. At least if your internet connection is reliable enough.
By the way, a similar rule applies to all the other technology you use in development. The version of Node.js, Prisma, other NPM dependencies, http and cache servers, etc. Even the operating system might be the source of compatibility issues, but you may have to develop in a Virtual Machine to match the OS to production exactly.
At one past job, I did help the developer team create what we called the "golden image" which was a pre-configured VM with all our software dependencies installed, and we used this golden image for both the developer sandbox VM, and also an AMI from which we launched the production Amazon EC2 instances. So all the developers were guaranteed to have a test environment that matched production exactly. After that, if they had code problems, they could fix it in development and have a much higher confidence it would work after deploying to production.
I'm a totally newbie with cloud computing, but I want to try it.
I want to relocate a public app developed by myself and currently served by a traditional hosting.
The requirements are just the basics.
- Windows Server 2008 R2 or later
minimal ram
.net 2.0 and .net 4.0 support
IIS
SQL Server 2008
Some 20gb, for the app, db, and files
Some 10gb more (DB backup)
With win2 + sql server I can't use the free testing. I know that and I'm ready to pay the platform needed. In the current hosting I'm paying for that too.
I just want see if someone can validate my configuration and say if I'm forgetting something:
1 instance EC2 Windows and Std. SQL Server m4.large
1 Amazon EBS Volumes 100gb, 3IOPS, 30% snapshots
1 Elastic IP for the unique instance
5GB Transfer in, out, interdata
http://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html#r=IAD&s=EC2&key=calc-D29B73A3-A7C5-4CEE-9C4F-3ED5A74D2420
Basically, the server will run the web app who has connection with the database installed in the same machine (maybe in the future with more visits the db will be moved to another vm). The web app will be public access.
Someone see something missing?
Should I buy amazon s3 storage for the backups?
Where will be saved the ebs volume backups? or with my configuration I can't have backups?
At the moment I'll keep using my own dns server and I hope be capable to configure for redirect to aws without need of amazon route 53.
at are you seeing, I need some orientation, because I'm a little lost in this new world. What services I need? what about the backups?
I'm not thinking at this moment in optimization (cache, load balance, ...). If the things go in the right way, in the future. Right now I just want the most simply installation. My problem, windows and sql, those can't be used in free version and I can't change the app.
I feel shame for be so annoying, but I still have those doubts.
There are a lot of pieces to this. I will try and break some of it down.
Should I buy amazon s3 storage for the backups? Where will be saved
the ebs volume backups? or with my configuration I can't have backups?
You can script a backup of the drive to S3, or back up the volume entirely as a 'volume'. Totally up to you. Backing up contents of the drive to S3 with a proper script (like this) would be a great idea.
At the moment I'll keep using my own dns server and I hope be capable to configure for redirect to aws without need of amazon route 53.
Route 53 is amazing and an extremely small charge for the flexibility it gives. I would recommend using it because it ties in neatly to other AWS services you might need (like load balancers) in the future.
I just want see if someone can validate my configuration and say if I'm forgetting something:
1 instance EC2 Windows and Std. SQL Server m4.large
1 Amazon EBS Volumes 100gb, 3IOPS, 30% snapshots
1 Elastic IP for the unique instance
5GB Transfer in, out, interdata
With an m4.large, you get 2 VCPUs and 8gb of memory, and 450mbps throughput. Do you need all that horsepower? You can try a t2.medium if that sounds like a lot for some burstable cpu performance. It all depends on what utilization you're at now, and if you're CPU/memory/bandwidth bound.
Feel free to ask more questions.
For backups of EBS volumes to S3, the best way to backup would be us EBS snapshots.
From what I gather, the only way to use a MySQL database with Azure websites is to use Cleardb but can I install MySQL on VMs provided in Azure Cloud Services. And if so how?
This question might get closed and moved to ServerFault (where it really belongs). That said: ClearDB provides MySQL-as-a-Service in Azure. It has nothing to do with what you can install in your own Virtual Machines. You can absolutely do a VM-based MySQL install (or any other database engine that you can install on Linux or Windows). In fact, the Azure portal even has a tutorial for a MySQL installation on OpenSUSE.
If you're referring to installing in web/worker roles: This simply isn't a good fit for database engines, due to:
the need to completely script/automate the install with zero interaction (which might take a long time). This includes all necessary software being downloaded/installed to the vm images every time a new instance is spun up.
the likely inability for a database cluster to cope with arbitrary scale-out (the typical use case for web/worker roles). Database clusters may or may not work well when a scale-out occurs (adding an additional vm). Same thing when scaling in (removing a vm).
less-optimal attached-storage configuration
inability to use Linux VMs
So, assuming you're still ok with Virtual Machines (vs stateless Cloud Service vm's): You'll need to carefully plan your deployment, with decisions such as:
Distro (Ubuntu, CentOS, etc). Azure-supported Linux distro list here
Selecting proper VM size (the DS series provide SSD attached disk support; the G series scale to 448GB RAM)
Azure Storage attached disks being non-Premium or Premium (premium disks are SSD-backed, durable disks scaling to 1TB/5000 IOPS per disk, up to 32 disks per VM depending on VM size)
Virtual network configuration (for multi-node cluster)
Accessibility of database cluster (whether your app is in the vnet or accesses it through a public endpoint; and if the latter, setting up ACL's)
Backup / HA / DR planning
Someone else mentioned using a pre-built VM image from VM Depot. Just realize that, if you go that route, you're relying on someone else to configure the database engine install for you. This may or may not be optimal for what you're trying to achieve. And the images may or may not be up-to-date with the latest versions, patches, etc.
Of course, what I wrote applies to any database engine you install in your own virtual machines, where a service provider (such as ClearDB) tends to take care of most of these things for you.
If you are talking about standard VMs then you can use a pre-built images on VMDepot for that.
If you are talking about web or worker roles (PaaS) I wouldn't recommend it, but if you really want to you could. You would need to fully script the install of the solution on the host. The only downside (and it's a big one) you would have would be the that the host will be moved to a new host at some point which would mean your MySQL data files would be lost - if you backed up frequently and were happy to lose some data then this option may work for you.
I think, that the main question is "what You want to achieve?". As I see, You want to use PaaS solution with Web Apps or Cloud Service and You need a MySQL database. If Yes, You have two options (both technically as David Makogon said). First one is to deploy Your own (one) server with MySQL and connect to it from the outside (internet side). Second solution is to create one MySQL server or cluster and connect Your application internally in Azure virtual network. WIth Cloud Service it is simple but with Web App it is not. You must create VPN gateway in Azure VM and connect Your Web App to this gateway. In this way You will have internal connection wfrom Your application to Your own MySQL cluster.
I've developed an application using the Microsoft Sync Framework 2.1 SDK and my current deployment method has been:
Make a backup of the unprovisioned database from a development machine and restore it on the server.
Provision the server followed by provisioning the client
Sync the databases
Take a backup of the synced database on the development machine and use that for the client installations. It is included in an InstallShield package as an SQL/Server backup that I restore on the client machine.
That works but on the client machine now I would also like to create a seperate test database using the same SQL/Server backup without doubling the size of the installation. That also works but of course because the client test version is no longer synced with the test version on the server it attempts to download all records which takes many hours over slower Internet connections.
Because integrity of the test database is not critical I'm wondering if there's a way to essentially mark it as 'up to date' on the client machine without too much network traffic?
After looking at the way the tracking tables work I'm not sure this is even possible without causing other clients to either upload or download everything. Maybe there is an option to upload only from a client that I've missed? That would suit this purpose fine.
Everytime you take a backup of a provisioned database and restore it to initialize another client or replica, make sure you run PerformPostRestoreFixup after you restore and before you sync it for the first time.
After further analysis of the data structures used by Sync Framework I determined there would be no acceptable way to achieve the result I was seeking without sending a significant of data between the client and server that would have approached what was required to do a 'proper' sync.
Instead I ended up including a seperate test database backup along with the deployment so that the usual PerformPostRestoreFixup could be performed followed by a sync in the normal manner the same as I was handling the live database.
What are the advantages we get by using Elastic Beanstalk over maually creating EC2 instance and setting up tomcat server and deploy etc for a typical java web applicaion. Are load balancing, Monitoring and autoscaling the only advantages?
Suppose for my web application which uses database I installed the database in the EC2 instance itself. When Autoscalling takes place will the database gets created in the newly created instance or it will be accessing the database I created in the master instance... If it creates just a replica when autoscaling happens how will be data sync happens between the instances?
All the things you mentioned like load balancing, monitoring and auto-scaling are definitely advantages.
However, you have to kind of think about it this way: In a true Platform as a Service (PAAS), the goal is to separate the application from the platform. As a developer, you only worry about your application. The platform is "rented" to you. The platform "instances" are automatically updated, administered, scaled, balanced, etc. for you. You just upload your WAR file and it just works (at least theoretically).
EC2 by itself is not PAAS. It is more like IAAS (Infrastructure as a Service). You still have to take care of the server instances, install software on them, keep them updated, etc.
Elastic Beanstalk is a PAAS system. So are App Engine and Azure among many others.
In a true PAAS system, the DBMS is a separate component from the web application server(s). The reason is obvious: The DBMS cannot be possibly installed on the instances that are being used for the application server because, as instances are created and destroyed based on your traffic, the DBMS would be lost! Having the DBMS and application server on the same machine/instance is not generally a good idea anyway.
In a PAAS system, the DBMS is a separate service. For Amazon, it would be Amazon RDS. Just like with Elastic Beanstalk, where you don't have to worry about the application server and you just upload your WAR file, with RDS, you don't have to worry about the DBMS and you just deploy your database(s).
Elastic Beanstalk and RDS work very well together, especially when deployed in the same availability zone, where the latency would be very low.
Finally, using Elastic Beanstalk doesn't cost anything more than the deployed resources (EC2 instances and the load balancer). However, RDS is not cheap and would definitely be more expensive than using a single EC2 instance for both the application server and the DBMS.
Elastic Beanstalk does more than just load balancing, monitoring, and autoscaling.
1) Manages application versions by storing and managing different versions of your application, allowing you to easily switch back and forth between different versions of your applications.
2) Has the concept of "environments" for each application, allowing you to deploy different versions of your application in each environment. This is handy for example if you want to set up separate QA and DEV environments, and you want to easily deploy a build first in DEV then deploy the same version of the application in QA when your QA team is ready for the next build.
3) Externalizes the important container configuration properties (Tomcat memory settings, for example) to the Elastic Beanstalk console and API. Because of this you can easily save the settings and copy them between environments.
4) View application log files through the console and automatically roll and archive log files to S3. (Admittedly this feature is currently a little weak.)
I had an app deployed both in EC2 dedicated(Nginx & Gunicorn) and Beanstalk Environment(CentOS & Apache2).
My observations:
BeanStalk is Paas. Manually creating an EC2 instance(IAAS), is like doing everything from scratch, but you have solid control.
BeanStalk comes with by default CentOS and Apache(Httpd). You could choose OS in dedicated instance.
These things that mattered to me,
There were lots of 504 errors showing up in Beanstalk environment.
It was difficult to debug when BeanStalk server crashed, as logs would also not show up and could not ssh into machine. This is very important.
Installing/configuring tools like Celery, Redis (need to run another port) etc.,. in dedicated instance is lot more easier.
In my case, I had to scale up (Beanstalk)server in order to run installation of some packages(like pandoc). These things are more simpler in Ubuntu.
Scaling is a lot more easier in BeanStalk. Cloning servers is straightforward in BeanStalk.
I had taken micro in both the cases (dedicated & Beanstalk). I felt dedicated micro instance was better.
Automated deployment in Beanstalk. I had to write scripts to automate the same, which is fine, since it is only once.