Amazon Web Services (AWS) Getting Started

[Tjcrazy]

Hey All,

 

I'm a final year undergraduate student and I've been hearing a lot about Amazon Web Services lately, mainly from prospective companies that may employ me.

 

The EC2 service is one that is mentioned frequently.

 

What is the best way to get started and get use to some of AWS products. I've got limited funds, and 0 AWS experience.

 

 

 

Tim

[vcfan]

they offer a free EC2 tier that you can use for free and mess around with

http://aws.amazon.com/free/

you get a micro instance(win or Linux vm), 2 million storage I/Os per month(easy to surpass), 15gb outgoing bandwidth (all incoming free as far as I remember). just don't go over or you'll get charged. I doubt it would be much anyways,maybe a few bucks, if youre just playing with it.

[Tjcrazy]

I know how to set one up, that was fairly easy. Its what I actually do with it?

 

My experience with servers is cPanel/Apache - setting up php/mySQL to run websites, and directing namservers towards them.

 

Is this possible with EC2?

[vcfan]

https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/

have fun. some are free to use with the free tier.

[+Kyle Subscriber¹]

I know how to set one up, that was fairly easy. Its what I actually do with it?

 

My experience with servers is cPanel/Apache - setting up php/mySQL to run websites, and directing namservers towards them.

 

Is this possible with EC2?

So with a cPanel environment you are used to everything being on one local environment. cPanel installations come with everything a user may want to use preinstalled and ready to go. With EC2 you are essentially handed a blank, virtual server and you can really do whatever you want with it. 

 

If you want to install mysql on EC2, you can but it isn't optimized for databases. I personally suggest using RDS for database management. 

 

Traditional DNS nameservers are different with EC2. Instead of using nameservers you would use A records and point your domain directly to your EC2 server if you are familiar with server management, or toward a DNS manager such as Route53 or Cloudflare. When you get good with APC/EC2/etc you learn how to create dynamic routing rules and make things more secure. 

 

Since you are looking into this for employment purposes, ask yourself what exactly you'll be doing at your job. If you are in charge of strictly web development, not server administration all you really need to understand is the linux command line and how to install whatever requirements you have for development on your linux distro. If you are going to be a server administrator then you need to understand linux hardening/security, dns security and general server administration. You also need to know what exactly your development requirements are so you aren't paying for instances you aren't utilizing. 

[LambdaLambdaLambdaFn]

Another thought:  look into the auto-scaling/fault tolerance that's built-in to AWS.  Knowing AWS and being a sysadmin/webby/programmer are all separate skills.  If you want to become proficient in AWS, there's a lot more to it than just EC2.