Host Your Web Site In The Cloud

Host Your Web Site On The Cloud is your step-by-step guide to this revolutionary approach to hosting and managing your web applications.
Cloud computing gives you the tools you need to prepare and cope with a traffic onslaught. You'll have the confidence to withstand a traffic surge without melting your servers or sending you into bankruptcy.

There are a number of ways to use the cloud to host existing applications, build creative new ones, and improve the cost-effectiveness and efficiency or organizations large and small.

You'll learn how to:

gain a thorough understanding of cloud computing
master the fundamentals of Amazon Web Services
install and configure visual and command line tools
store, retrieve, and distribute data quickly and easily
build applications that scale
manage the monitoring, load balancing, and scaling capabilities of cloud computing
As a developer, you need room & flexibility to be innovative. Why waste time worrying about the technical aspects of server capacity? AWS handles security, load balancing, and server resources virtually so you're not restricted to one physical server.

A guide to hosting web sites on Amazon EC2. This book teaches you how to host your websites, applications or date on the Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud. Coverage is endless, and you can launch new servers, in minutes, pay just pennies per GB for bandwidth, and store terabytes of data at a fraction of the cost of using a traditional centre.

0. Preface * Who Should Read This Book? * What s Covered in This Book? * The Book s Web Site o The Code Archive o Updates and Errata * The SitePoint Forums * The SitePoint Newsletters * The SitePoint Podcast * Your Feedback * Acknowledgments * Conventions Used in This Book o Markup Samples o Tips, Notes, and Warnings 1. 1. Welcome to Cloud Computing * Avoiding a Success Disaster * Tell Me about Cloud Computing! o What s a Cloud? o The Programmable Data Center * Characterizing the Cloud o Some Common Misconceptions * Cloud Usage Patterns * Cloud Use Cases o Hosting Static Web Sites and Complex Web Applications o Software Development Life Cycle Support o Training o Demos o Data Storage o Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity o Media Processing and Rendering o Business and Scientific Data Processing o Overflow Processing * Just Recapping 2. 2. Amazon Web Services Overview * Amazon and AWS Overview o Building Blocks o Protocols o Dollars and Cents o Key Concepts * AWS Infrastructure Web Services o Amazon Simple Storage Service o Amazon CloudFront o Amazon Simple Queue Service o Amazon SimpleDB o Amazon Relational Database Service o Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud o Amazon Elastic MapReduce o Other Services * What We ve Covered 3. 3. Tooling Up * Technical Prerequisites o Skills Expectations o Hardware and Software Expectations o Optional but Recommended * Tools and Libraries o Tool Considerations o Language Libraries o Command Line Tools o Visual Tools * Creating an AWS Account * Obtaining Your AWS Keys * Running the PHP Code in This Book * Installing CloudFusion * Where We ve Been 4. 4. Storing Data with Amazon S3 * S3 Overview o The S3 Pricing Model * CloudFront Overview o The CloudFront Pricing Model * Programming S3 and CloudFront o Creating an S3 Bucket o Listing Your S3 Buckets o Bucket Listing as a Web Page o Listing Objects in a Bucket o Processing Complex CloudFusion Data Structures o Listing Objects in a Bucket as a Web Page o Uploading Files to S3 o Creating and Storing Thumbnail Images * Creating a CloudFront Distribution o Listing CloudFront Distributions o Listing S3 Files with Thumbnails * Finally 5. 5. Web Hosting with Amazon EC2 * The Programmable Data Center * Amazon EC2 Overview o Persistent and Ephemeral Resources o Amazon EC2 Terminology o All Together Now * The Amazon EC2 Pricing Model o Instance Use o Data Transfer o AMI Storage o IP Address Reservations o Elastic Block Store * Launching Your First Amazon EC2 Instance o Creating and Preparing an SSH Key o Touring the AWS Management Console o Launching Your First Instance o Enabling SSH Access o Connecting to the Instance o Assigning an IP Address o Creating an EBS Volume o Testing Apache o Running Some Code o Shutting Down o You Did It! * All about AMIs o The AMI Catalog o Choosing an AMI * Creating a Custom AMI o Planning o Image Preparation o Image Scrubbing o Image Creation o Reusing and Sharing the AMI * Using the EC2 API * Closing Thoughts 6. 6. Building a Scalable Architecture with Amazon SQS * Why Asynchronous Messaging? * Asynchronous Messaging Patterns * Amazon SQS Overview o Terminology and Concepts o Watch Out For o Operations o Pricing Model * Programming Amazon SQS o Creating a Queue o Listing Queues o Inserting Items into Queues o Extracting Items from Queues o Introducing JSON * Building an Image Crawler o Hosting the Image Crawler o Definitions and Utility Functions o Crawl Queue Status Command o Crawl Loader Command o The Feed Processing Pipeline o Running the Code * Wrapping Up 7. 7. EC2 Monitoring, Auto Scaling, and Elastic Load Balancing * Introduction o Vertical Scaling o Horizontal Scaling o Monitoring, Scaling, and Load Balancing * Installing the Command Line Tools * Monitoring EC2 Data with Amazon CloudWatch o Amazon CloudWatch Concepts o Amazon CloudWatch Operation o Amazon CloudWatch Pricing o Amazon CloudWatch from the Command Line o Programming Amazon CloudWatch * Learning and Using Apache JMeter o Why JMeter? o Installing and Running JMeter o Creating a Test Plan o Running the Test o Viewing the Results o Going Further with JMeter * Scaling EC2 Instances with Elastic Load Balancing o Elastic Load Balancing Concepts o Elastic Load Balancing Processing Model o Elastic Load Balancing Pricing o Elastic Load Balancing in Operation o Programming Elastic Load Balancing * Auto Scaling o Auto Scaling Concepts o Auto Scaling Processing Model o Auto Scaling Pricing o Auto Scaling in Operation o Off the Scale * Wrapping It Up 8. 8. Amazon SimpleDB: A Cloud Database * Introduction * Amazon SimpleDB o Amazon SimpleDB Concepts o Amazon SimpleDB Programming Model o Amazon SimpleDB Pricing * Programming Amazon SimpleDB o Creating a Domain o Listing Domains o Storing Data o Storing Multiple Items Efficiently o Running a Query o Advanced Queries o Augmenting Items with Additional Data o Storing Multiple Values for an Attribute o Accessing Attribute Values o Deleting Attributes o Deleting Items o Monitoring Domain Statistics * Processing and Storing RSS Feeds with Amazon SimpleDB * All Stored 9. 9. Amazon Relational Database Service * Introduction * Amazon Relational Database Service o Amazon RDS Concepts o Amazon RDS Programming Model o Amazon RDS Pricing * Using Amazon RDS o Signing Up o Tour the Console o Launching a DB Instance o Configure a DB Security Group o Access the DB Instance o Import Some Data * Administering RDS o Monitor Instance Performance o Initiate a Snapshot Backup o Scale-up Processing o Scale-up Storage o Create a DB Instance from a DB Snapshot or to a Point in Time o Convert to Multi-AZ o Delete DB Instances * And That s a Wrap 10. 10. Advanced AWS * Accounting and Tracking o Account Activity o Access to Usage Data o Importing Usage Data o Querying Account Data o Retrieving and Displaying Usage Data * Elastic Block Storage o EBS from the Command Line o EBS Snapshots o EBS Public Data Sets o EBS RAID * EC2 Instance Metadata * Dynamic Diagramming * Conclusion 11. 11. Putting It All Together: CloudList * Designing the Application * Utility Functions and Programs * The Web Front End * The New Item Submission Form * And That s It 12. Index