Blog on CloudAid

Migrating from On-Premises Servers to AWS EC2 Benefits and Step-by-Step Guide

Wed, 29 May 2024 10:07:21 +0600

Amazon EC2 gives you virtual servers in the cloud that you rent by the hour or second. This guide covers why teams move on-premises servers to EC2 and the four steps a migration usually follows. At the end we explain how CloudAid.net helps with AWS migrations.

Benefits of Migrating to AWS EC2

1. Cost Savings

On-premises infrastructure means paying up front for hardware, software licenses, and maintenance. Add redundancy and room to grow, and the bill climbs fast.

Understanding AWS Lambda Pricing - A Comprehensive Breakdown

Mon, 11 Dec 2023 00:07:21 +0600

Introduction to AWS Lambda

AWS Lambda runs your code in response to events and manages the compute underneath it. You don’t provision or patch servers, and you pay only while your code runs. That makes it a popular choice for teams that want to cut operational overhead.

The pricing is harder to predict than a flat hourly rate. Your bill depends on how many requests you serve, how long each one runs, and how much memory you give the function, so estimates take some work.

Top 5 Innovative Uses of AWS Lambda in Modern Web Applications

Mon, 04 Dec 2023 00:07:21 +0600

Introduction

AWS Lambda is Amazon’s event-driven compute service. You write a function, attach it to an event source, and AWS runs it when the event fires. You don’t provision or patch servers.

Below are five ways teams use Lambda in web applications. For each one I cover the settings that matter in practice: concurrency, timeout, limits, and cost.

Use Case 1: Real-Time Data Processing

Lambda fits well when you need to act on data the moment it arrives. You configure a trigger, such as a new record in a stream or a new object in a bucket, and your function runs on each event.

How to Install and Configure OpenVPN on EC2 Amazon Linux 2

Mon, 27 Nov 2023 00:07:21 +0600

Introduction

OpenVPN on EC2

A VPN gives your team encrypted access to private network resources. OpenVPN is a mature, open-source option, and an EC2 instance running Amazon Linux 2 is a cheap place to host it. You get secure access to your network and can resize the instance as your team grows.

Why OpenVPN on Amazon EC2 Linux 2?

Running OpenVPN on EC2 gives you:

Security: OpenVPN uses strong encryption to tunnel your traffic.
Scalability and Flexibility: You can move to a larger EC2 instance as your user count grows.
Cost-Effective: With pay-as-you-go pricing, an EC2 instance can cost less than a traditional VPN appliance or service.
Customizable: You can tune OpenVPN to match your security and network requirements.

This guide covers prerequisites, installation, configuration, testing, hardening, and maintenance.

5 Key Benefits of Migrating to AWS for Canadian Businesses

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 00:07:21 +0600

1. Introduction to AWS and Its Growing Importance in Canada

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the largest cloud providers in the world, and more Canadian companies use it each year. They want infrastructure that scales, stays secure, and costs less than running their own hardware.

Canada has a strong tech sector and strict privacy law, so security and compliance weigh heavily in any cloud decision here. AWS’s global infrastructure and compliance programs fit those needs. Startups and large enterprises both run on it, across a wide range of workloads.

Is a T-Series Instance the Right Choice for My Website? Handling Traffic Spikes and Performance

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 10:07:21 +0600

The EC2 instance type you pick affects your website’s speed, reliability, and monthly bill. Amazon’s T-series instances give you a baseline level of CPU with the option to burst above it. Below is how that works, an example of a traffic spike, and how to decide whether T-series fits your site.

Understanding T-Series Instances

Baseline Performance and CPU Credits

A T-series instance gives you a baseline level of CPU performance, enough for everyday load. While your CPU usage stays below that baseline, the instance earns CPU credits. It spends those credits when demand goes up.

EC2 T Series Uncovered - Mastering Burstable Instances for Optimal Performance and Savings

Mon, 06 Nov 2023 10:07:21 +0600

AWS burstable performance instances target workloads whose CPU use goes up and down. This post explains how they work and where they save you money.

Understanding Workload Patterns

Many general-purpose workloads sit at low average CPU with occasional spikes. On a fixed-performance instance, you pay for capacity that stays idle most of the day. The T instance family addresses this with a balance of compute, memory, and network resources at a lower price.

Understanding AWS EC2 Instance Types and Naming Conventions

Mon, 30 Oct 2023 10:07:21 +0600

AWS offers dozens of Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instance types, grouped by compute, memory, storage, and other traits. Once you can read an instance name, you can tell most of what an instance offers before opening the spec sheet.

Instance Type Naming Convention

Each part of an instance name tells you something: the family, generation, processor family, additional capabilities, and size.

Take ‘c7gn.xlarge’:

Instance family (Compute optimized)

Instance generation

Simplifying Your AWS Migration | Expert Assistance for Small Businesses

Fri, 20 Oct 2023 10:07:21 +0600

Many small businesses now run on the cloud, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the main platforms they choose. Moving your operations to AWS takes real work, though, and without experience it’s easy to get wrong. This guide covers what a migration involves and where expert help makes a difference, whether you’re in Toronto or anywhere else in Canada.

The Complexity of AWS Migration

A migration touches a lot of moving parts: AWS services, security, networking, data transfer, and more. Each one takes time and has its own failure modes. If you skip the planning, you risk outages and broken systems in the middle of the move.

How SMBs Can Save on DevOps Engineer Salaries

Mon, 25 Sep 2023 10:07:21 +0600

DevOps engineers are among the most expensive hires in tech. Companies want faster releases and steadier infrastructure, and the people who can deliver both know what they’re worth. Industry salary surveys show DevOps pay climbing steadily over the past few years.

For a small or medium-sized business (SMB), that salary can be hard to justify. Outsourcing gives you access to the same skills from a global talent pool at a lower cost, and it lets you compete with larger companies that can afford a full in-house team.

7 Common Mistakes to Avoid During Your AWS Migration Journey

Mon, 11 Sep 2023 10:07:21 +0600

Moving to AWS can get you elastic capacity, lower costs, and faster deployments. It can also get you surprise bills, outages, and data exposure if you skip steps. A migration runs through planning, assessment, execution, and post-migration tuning, and each stage has its own ways to go wrong. These are the seven mistakes I see most often.

1. Not Conducting a Comprehensive Assessment First

Start every migration with an assessment. Inventory your current infrastructure, map application dependencies, record performance baselines, and write down any compliance or security requirements. That gives you a map of where you are and a target for where you want to end up on AWS.

From Docker to AWS ECS, Transitioning and Scaling with Elastic Container Service

Thu, 17 Aug 2023 10:07:21 +0600

Docker makes containers easy to build and run. Managing dozens or hundreds of them by hand gets hard as you grow. Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) runs, scales, and manages Docker containers for you. This post covers the differences, the migration steps, and what ECS gives you once you’re on it.

Understanding the Basics: Docker vs. AWS ECS

Docker: The Building Block

Docker packages an application and its dependencies into a single container, so it runs the same way in every environment. That ends most “it works on my machine” problems and makes deployments more predictable.

How to check file update on an S3 bucket and download latest version into the local folder

Tue, 18 Aug 2020 10:07:21 +0600

1- Install the AWS CLI on your server.

2- Run aws configure to add your AWS key and secret.

3- Run aws s3 ls to confirm the CLI works and you can access your S3 bucket.

4- Save the code below into a bash script file:

#!/bin/bash

aws s3 ls s3://MY-BUCKET > a.txt #get files list in S3 bucket
A=$(cat a.txt| md5sum | cut -d " " -f1) #get md5 checksum for a.txt
B=$(cat b.txt| md5sum | cut -d " " -f1) #get md5 checksum for b.txt


if [[ $A == $B ]] #If A==B, which means they are equal
then
echo "Nothing to update => " $(date +"%d-%m-%Y-%H-%M-%S") >> logs.txt
else
echo "We should update"
 rm -rf b.txt 
 rm -rf updatedPkg.zip

 aws s3 cp s3://MY-BUCKET/updatedPkg.zip ./updatedPkg.zip #Copy new file from S3 to local

 cp a.txt b.txt # overwrite b.txt with a.txt content
 
 echo "last update => " $(date +"%d-%m-%Y-%H-%M-%S") >> logs.txt
fi

5- Add the script to cron to run it on a schedule.

How to create Administrator user AWS

Sat, 18 Jul 2020 10:07:21 +0600

Using the root account for day-to-day work is risky. Create an administrator user instead:

1- Log in to your AWS account, search for IAM in the top menu, and click IAM.

2- Click Users in the left menu.

3- Enter a username and password, check “Password - AWS management console access”, then click “Next permission”.

4- Choose “Attach existing policies directly” at the top, search for “admin” in the policy filter, check “AdministratorAccess”, then click “Next: Tags”.

How to find default Mysql password Bitnami image

Sat, 18 Jul 2020 10:07:21 +0600

Bitnami keeps the application credentials in a standalone file. You can read them at any time:

1- Connect to the server through SSH.

2- Print the credentials file:

sudo cat /home/bitnami/bitnami_credentials

How to remove PHPMyadmin from Apache Bitnami Wordpress

Sat, 18 Jul 2020 10:07:21 +0600

1- Connect to the server through SSH.

2- Remove this line from /opt/bitnami/apache2/conf/bitnami/bitnami-apps-prefix.conf:

 Include "/opt/bitnami/apps/phpmyadmin/conf/httpd-prefix.conf"

3- Restart Apache:

 sudo /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh restart apache

How to restart services Bitnami Wordpress

Sat, 18 Jul 2020 10:07:21 +0600

Restart Apache:

 /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh restart apache

Apache service status:

 /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh status apache

Stop Apache:

 /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh stop apache

Start Apache:

 /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh start apache

Restart MySQL:

 /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh restart mysql

MySQL service status:

 /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh status mysql

Stop MySQL:

 /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh stop mysql

Start MySQL:

 /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh start mysql

Restart php-fpm:

 /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh restart php-fpm

php-fpm service status:

 /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh status php-fpm

Stop php-fpm:

 /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh stop php-fpm

Start php-fpm:

How to run Wordpress & Mysql with docker-compose and custom php.ini

Sat, 18 Jul 2020 10:07:21 +0600

1- Save this as docker-compose.yml:

 version: "3.3"
 
 services:
 db:
 image: mysql:5.7
 volumes:
 - ${PWD}/db_data:/var/lib/mysql
 restart: always
 environment:
 MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: somewordpress
 MYSQL_DATABASE: wordpress
 MYSQL_USER: wordpress
 MYSQL_PASSWORD: wordpress
 
 wordpress:
 depends_on:
 - db
 image: wordpress:latest
 volumes:
 - ${PWD}/wordpress_data:/var/www/html
 - ./php.ini:/usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/conf.ini
 ports:
 - "8000:80"
 restart: always
 environment:
 WORDPRESS_DB_HOST: db
 WORDPRESS_DB_USER: wordpress
 WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD: wordpress
 WORDPRESS_DB_NAME: wordpress
 volumes:
 db_data: {}
 wordpress_data: {}

2- Save this as php.ini in the same directory:

How to setup Route53, CloudFront, S3 bucket for Static Website hosted on S3

Sat, 18 Jul 2020 10:07:21 +0600

1- Create your S3 bucket and upload your website content. The article linked below has more detail. Name the bucket after your domain:

www.domain.com

Replace domain.com with your domain name.

Permissions for static website on S3 bucket.

2- Create a CloudFront distribution with the S3 bucket above as its origin. After it deploys, check that your website loads from the CloudFront URL, which looks like this:

fsdafsdf43f3f3f3.cloudfront.net

3- Create a certificate for your domain in ACM and choose DNS validation. For the domain names, enter:

How to share files between steps on Bitbucket pipeline

Sat, 18 Jul 2020 10:07:21 +0600

List files under artifacts in a step and Bitbucket copies them into the steps that follow. This pipeline builds dist, zips it, then uploads the zip to S3.

bitbucket-pipelines.yml

 image: node:16

 pipelines:
 default:
 - step:
 name: Build 
 caches:
 - node
 script:
 - echo "Building files"
 - yarn 
 - yarn build ./dist
 artifacts: 
 - dist  # means need to save dist folder and copy to next step
 - dist/**  # means need to save dist folder and copy to next step
 - step:
 name: Use files from previous step
 image: atlassian/default-image:3
 caches:
 - node
 script:
 - zip -r file.zip dist
 artifacts: 
 - file.zip  # means need to save file.zip folder and copy to next step
 - step:
 name: Upload file to S3
 image: atlassian/pipelines-awscli
 caches:
 - node
 script:
 - aws s3 cp file.zip s3://mys3-bucket/

How upload built file to S3 bucket in Bitbucket pipeline

Sat, 18 Jul 2020 10:07:21 +0600

1- Create a bitbucket-pipelines.yml file in your Bitbucket repo.

2- Add this configuration:

 image: node:16

 pipelines:
 default:
 - step:
 name: Build App
 caches:
 - node
 script:
 - echo "Building App"
 - yarn 
 - yarn build
 artifacts: 
 - build  #Move build folder to next step
 - build/**
 - step:
 name: Zip build folder
 image: atlassian/default-image:3
 caches:
 - node
 script:
 - zip -r pkg.zip ./build
 artifacts: 
 - pkg.zip  #Move pkg.zip to next step
 - step:
 name: Upload to S3
 deployment: staging
 image: atlassian/pipelines-awscli
 caches:
 - node
 script:
 - aws s3 cp pkg.zip s3://MY-BUCKET/  #Copy pkg.zip to S3 bucket

3- Go to Settings => Deployments => Staging and add your AWS credentials as secured variables:

Permissions for static website on S3 bucket

Sat, 18 Jul 2020 10:07:21 +0600

1- Open your S3 bucket and choose the Permissions tab.

2- Under Block public access (bucket settings), choose Edit.

3- Clear Block all public access and choose Save changes.

4- Choose the Permissions tab.

5- Under Bucket Policy, choose Edit.

6- To grant public read access to your website, paste this policy into the Bucket policy editor:

 {
 "Version": "2012-10-17",
 "Statement": [
 {
 "Sid": "PublicReadGetObject",
 "Effect": "Allow",
 "Principal": "*",
 "Action": [
 "s3:GetObject"
 ],
 "Resource": [
 "arn:aws:s3:::Bucket-Name/*"
 ]
 }
 ]
 }

7- Replace “Bucket-Name” in "arn:aws:s3:::Bucket-Name/*" with your bucket name.

Blog on CloudAid

Migrating from On-Premises Servers to AWS EC2 Benefits and Step-by-Step Guide

Benefits of Migrating to AWS EC2

1. Cost Savings

Understanding AWS Lambda Pricing - A Comprehensive Breakdown

Introduction to AWS Lambda

Top 5 Innovative Uses of AWS Lambda in Modern Web Applications

Introduction

Use Case 1: Real-Time Data Processing

How to Install and Configure OpenVPN on EC2 Amazon Linux 2

Introduction

OpenVPN on EC2

Why OpenVPN on Amazon EC2 Linux 2?

5 Key Benefits of Migrating to AWS for Canadian Businesses

1. Introduction to AWS and Its Growing Importance in Canada

Is a T-Series Instance the Right Choice for My Website? Handling Traffic Spikes and Performance

Understanding T-Series Instances

Baseline Performance and CPU Credits

EC2 T Series Uncovered - Mastering Burstable Instances for Optimal Performance and Savings

Understanding Workload Patterns

Understanding AWS EC2 Instance Types and Naming Conventions

Instance Type Naming Convention

c:

7:

Simplifying Your AWS Migration | Expert Assistance for Small Businesses

The Complexity of AWS Migration

How SMBs Can Save on DevOps Engineer Salaries

7 Common Mistakes to Avoid During Your AWS Migration Journey

1. Not Conducting a Comprehensive Assessment First

From Docker to AWS ECS, Transitioning and Scaling with Elastic Container Service

Understanding the Basics: Docker vs. AWS ECS

Docker: The Building Block

How to check file update on an S3 bucket and download latest version into the local folder

How to create Administrator user AWS

How to find default Mysql password Bitnami image

How to remove PHPMyadmin from Apache Bitnami Wordpress

How to restart services Bitnami Wordpress

How to run Wordpress & Mysql with docker-compose and custom php.ini

How to setup Route53, CloudFront, S3 bucket for Static Website hosted on S3

How to share files between steps on Bitbucket pipeline

bitbucket-pipelines.yml

How upload built file to S3 bucket in Bitbucket pipeline

Permissions for static website on S3 bucket