Windows services on EC2? - amazon-ec2

Can you install and run your own windows services on ec2? Does it have MSMQ?

Yes, you can. You can also install MSMQ, and I can confirm that it works perfectly.
First you need to create an EBS volume, using a snapshot of the appropriate Windows installation media:
Install windows services on EC2 http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/9644/aws.png
Then simply attach the EBS volume to your Windows instance. At this stage, you would be able to install any Windows service, such as MSMQ and IIS, that did not come pre-installed with the original AMI.

You could also take advantage of Amazon Simple Queue Service. It's exposed as a webservice so you could easily communicate with it from your Windows Service or virtually any other platform/technology.

Yes, you can install any software that you like.
I don't know for sure if MSMQ is available or not. If you don't get a specific answer here you could post on the AWS forums, or if you have an account, fire up an instance and test it out (e.g. using this AMI).

Related

Windows Server Containers in Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

I'd like to run Windows containers in GKE.
Is it possible to use Windows Server Containers OS in Google Kubernetes Engine?
I see Windows Server Containers OS is available in Compute Engine and seems that Kubernetes support is available for Windows.
It is possible to run Windows containers, but only as a container in a Compute Engine VM instance.
I would refer you to this article in the GCP blog. Please be aware that there a few known issues that you should read before deploying Windows containers in Windows VM instances.
For GKE, there is currently a Feature Request. Other customers have asked to include future support for Windows containers in GKE. This is a request through official means. Google will consider the need based on its feasibility, or the number of customers who ask for it, but they can't guarantee an implementation or provide you with an ETA for it.

What happens to processes when an EBS backed EC2 instance is stopped and restarted?

I'm running an application that is a web app and the backend for an ios app as well as a database in an ec2 instance. Will these processes resume if I stop, resize, and restart my instance? Will I need to go in and run startup scripts?
Any help is appreciated, I'm confused by the AWS documentation as to exactly what happens.
It's just like turning your laptop off and then back on. If you have configured the services to start automatically on boot then they will restart, if you haven't configured them to start automatically on boot then they won't.
This is a function of the software you have installed and configured on the EC2 instances, and whatever Operating System your EC2 instance is running. You won't find much about this in the AWS documentation because it isn't really Amazon specific.

AWS EC2 Instance OS repair

I have Apache server running on Centos5.4 Ec2 instance. Unfortunately while removing Bash from Centos, it also removed basic shared libraries.
Now afterward I can't SSH to that EC2 instance but Apache server is still running (I can access my site through URL).
Any idea how can I get the SSH access back? or can repair Centos Ec2 instance?
Thanks!
You can always contact the AWS support directly. They are very accommodating. send a message to them and they will recover your access, if it is doable from their end.
You may call, or you may send a message from your AWS account.

Using vagrant on EC2

I need to setup a web server and a database server on EC2.
It should be easy to migrate to another service provider later.
Currently, I have a web server and a database server, each running on separate EC2 micro instances with software installed there remotely.
Can we run a vagrant box on these micro instances with pre-installed and pre-configured softwares like LAMP stack and use that instead. So I will end with 2 vagrant boxes , one for web server another for database server.
Amazon provides already means to copy an instance but it is copied to another EC2 instance only probably .. If there is need to move to some other provider, it will be same process of re-installing all. So, an own virtual box installed on Amazon's virtual box is what i was looking into..
I don't know how good or bad it is.. I doubt if this will affect performance as well. Please share your views. Target is to have env prepared locally and have flexibility to deploy it on any service provider easily.
Running vagrant inside your AWS box is probably not the right solution. Have you looked into the Vagrant AWS provider?
That will allow you to setup and provision your AWS boxes with Vagrant and Puppet or Chef... if you are using Puppet or Chef to provision your servers then you will have a very portable "scripted" install for your servers that can easily be moved to another provider at a later date...
So running a virtual machine, on another virtual machine probably isn't the best. But if you want to install Vagrant on Amazon Linux you can do:
wget https://releases.hashicorp.com/vagrant/2.2.4/vagrant_2.2.4_x86_64.rpm
sudo rpm -ivh vagrant_2.2.4_x86_64.rpm
The RPM is the Centos version from the downloads page here: https://www.vagrantup.com/downloads.html
But then you cannot install virtualbox to run a VM. So it doesn't actually work anyways.

Replacing Rackspace Cloud SITES with Amazon EC2 Instances

So at work we run a bunch of sites on rackspaces cloud sites platform. This works alright, except I have no way of tweaking anything server side and I find that they sometimes aren't as responsive as they could be.
Let's assume that most of the sites are bloated wordpress installations.
Would it be possible to use EC2 micro instances to host these? (One instance per site)?
I want to move away from rackspace as I have no flexibility with cloud sites and prefer Amazons services.
Sure! You can easily do that!
Sign up for EC2 here.
Go to http://alestic.com/ and chose AMI (Ubuntu AMIs for EC2 drop-down) you want to start instance from.
Start EC2 Micro Instance by hitting the links (or use API Tools). You can use user-data to install desired software on instance start, but I recommend (for simplicity) just to start Instance and install software via terminal using SSH. Follow the dialog and create RSA key to connect your Instance.
Connect to your Instance over ssh using RSA key.
Install software. For example: sudo su, then apt-get update && apt-get install -y ntp php5-fpm nginx wordpress [...].
Create AMI from running Instance with installed and configured software.
Launch more Instances from your own AMI bundled with Wordpress and stuff!
Full disclosure: I am a rackspace employee.
If you want more flexibility than rackspace cloud sites, then you can use rackspace cloud server. You will have all the flexibility of the cloud. If you like the managed part of cloud sites, then i would suggest managed cloud server.

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