Vancouver Drupal group presentation for April 25, 2013. How to deploy Drupal on - multiple web servers, - multiple web and database servers, and - how to join all that together and make site deployed on Amazon Cloud (Virtual Private Cloud) inside - one availability zone - multiple availability zones deployment. Session cover details about what you need in order to get Drupal deployed on separate servers, what are issues/concerns, and how to solve them.

1. scaling Drupal
horizontally and in the
cloud

2. about me
name: Vladimir Ilic
email: burger.boy.daddy@gmail.com
twitter: @burgerboydaddy
http://burgerboydaddy.com

3. agenda
why all of this?
step 1: test locally -> from one server to the server farm,
step 2: multiple web and database servers,
step 3: how to join all that together and make site deployed on Amazon
Cloud and inside Virtual Private Cloud
Amazon term
benefits
single availability zone
multiple availability zones.

4. why?
if you want to increase site speed
if you want your site to be responsive and to work
under heavy stress
if you want to be in control what goes on your server

5. get it divided / decouple
Easy to do inside local development/hosting
environment
Just separate web, database and cache servers
Problems
we can increase resources only vertically
Not all resources are used same way (web server
will probably die before cache or MySQL)
Multiple “single points of failure”

6. multiple web servers –
one dbApache load balancer in front
of
2-3 web servers; each
server with integrated
APC cache
Multiple cache servers
Powerful MySQL server
In real life you can use some
other LB solution (this one is
great for proof of concept
moments).
Without dedicated file server;
used bi-directional rsync
replication

7. configuring Apache load
balancer
Apache web server ships a load balancer module called
mod_proxy_balancer (since version 2.2).
All you need to do is to enable this module and the
modules mod_proxy and mod_proxy_http. Please note
that without mod_proxy_http, balancer just won't work.
LoadModule proxy_module mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module mod_proxy_http.so
LoadModule proxy_balancer_module
mod_proxy_balancer.so

8. many to many
In this case each web
server will have it's
own db server.
Reason for this:
Higher site
availability; if one
db server is down,
second one can
continue to serve
customers.

9. Amazon AWS
Why Amazon (business point of view)
Most complete cloud solution on the market.
Almost zero upfront infrastructure investment
Just-in-time infrastructure
Pay as you go – pay what you use
Constant price drop
Easy to deploy and scale
….

10. why Amazon (technical
benefits)
Automation – “Scriptable infrastructure”: You can
create repeatable build and deployment systems by
leveraging programmable (API-driven) infrastructure.
Auto-scaling: You can scale your applications up and
down to match your unexpected demand without any
human intervention.
Proactive Scaling: Scale your application up and down
to meet your anticipated demand; Elasticity

11. why Amazon (technical
benefits)
More Efficient Development lifecycle: Production
systems may be easily cloned for use as development
and test environments.
Improved Testability: Never run out of hardware for
testing. Inject and automate testing at every stage
during the development process.
Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity: The cloud
provides a lower cost option for maintaining a fleet of
DR servers and data storage.

12. understanding elasticity

13. key Amazon terms – #1
AWS – Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a collection of remote computing services (also called web
services) that together make up a cloud computing platform.
EC2 - Elastic Compute Cloud
EC2 allows users to rent virtual computers on which to run their own computer applications.
EC2 allows scalable deployment of applications by providing a Web service through which a
user can boot an Amazon Machine Image to create a virtual machine.
A user can create, launch, and terminate server instances as needed, paying by the hour for
active servers, hence the term "elastic".
S3 - Simple Storage Service
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is an online storage web service offered by AWS.
AMI - Amazon Machine Images
An Amazon Machine Image (AMI) is a special type of virtual appliance which is used to
instantiate (create) a virtual machine within the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud ("EC2").

14. key Amazon terms - #2
EBS - Elastic Block Storage
Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS) provides raw block devices that can be attached
to Amazon EC2 instances.
Can be used like any raw block device. In a typical use case, this would include
formatting the device with a filesystem and mounting said filesystem.
VPC - Virtual Private Cloud
Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) is a commercial cloud computing service that
provides a virtual private cloud.
Unlike traditional EC2 instances which are allocated internal and external IP numbers
by Amazon, the customer can assign IP numbers of their choosing from one or more
subnets.
VPC provides much more granular control over security.
ELB - Elastic Load Balancing
AZ - Amazon Availability Zones (Data Centers)

15. key Amazon terms - #3
RDS - Amazon Relational Database Service
Amazon RDS is a distributed relational database service by Amazon.com.
It is a web service running "in the cloud" and provides a relational database for use
in applications.
Supporting
MySQL databases
Oracle databases
Microsoft SQL Server
ECU - Elastic Computational Unit
One EC2 Compute Unit provides the equivalent CPU capacity of a 1.0-1.2 GHz
2007 Opteron or 2007 Xeon processor.
SQS - Simple Queue Service

16. list of services goes on…

17. humor
“We will launch site on EC2 with EBS behind ELB with
domain registered on Route 53
Your images will come from CloudFront,
backup will go to S3
and your DB on RDS with Multi-AZ availability”

18. first step first – create
accountGo to aws.amazon.com
and just use your
amazon.com account for
start
After login go to IAM
(Identity Access
Management) to add multi-
factor authentication; not
to your root account, but
create new account,
assign privileges to it and
add MFA. After that use
only new account to login
to your AWS (with given
alias)

19. easy one – use
CloudFormation
Fastest way to get Drupal on AWS
is using predefined templates inside
CloudFormation service.
In this moment you can find 4
(Drupal specific) templates
Drupal_Simple.template
Drupal_Single_Instance.template
Drupal_Single_Instance_With_R
DS.template
Drupal_Multi_AZ.template
You can use any other template as
starting point and customize it to
your needs.

20. steps after
Create KeyPair
Add your home/corporate IP to be only allowed to access server over port 22
(SSH).
Create AMI from existing machine
Drop original machine
Create new EC2 instance using just created AMI and your key-pair
Add Elastic IP and associate to your instance
Connect to instance
Add DNS CNAME record using given Amazon DNS name:
ec2-54-225-110-202.compute-1.amazonaws.com

21. demo
Mandatory
clouds image :-)

22. Amazon VPC - ultimate
goal
We can install complete infrastructure required for Drupal using public set of servers
ELB (load balancer)
AMI (servers images)
RDS (Amazon relational database service)
Elastic Cache...
BUT
Amazon VPC is a way to setup an isolated partition of AWS and control the network
topology.
Services
Dynamodb, ElastiCache, SQS, SES, and CloudSearch are not yet available in VPC
(things change on daily basis)
RDS instances launched in VPC cannot be accessed over the internet (through the
end point). You will need bastion server to access it

24. EC2 / VPC instances

25. EC2 - NAT Instance

26. VPC subnets
IP Ranges - When setting up a VPC you are essentially fixing the network of the VPC.
Public and Private Subnets - The VPC network can be divided further in to smaller network
segments called as Subnets. Any VPC will have at least one Subnet
You can setup a Public Subnet which will have internet connectivity. Instances launched within
a Public Subnet will have both outbound and inbound (through EIP) internet connectivity
through the Internet Gateway attached to the Public Subnet
Private Subnets are completely locked down. They do not have internet connectivity by default
Create number of Public and Private Subnets depending upon your architecture.

27. VPC security groups

28. AMI images

29. EBS volumes

31. autoscaling
holy grail
Key to
Elasticity is in
autoscaling

32. how to autoscale
Install AWS Command Line Tools from Amazon
Downloads
Download from: http://aws.amazon.com/developertools/2535
Note: AWS Auto scaling needs Amazon CloudWatch
monitoring service to function. Amazon CloudWatch is
billed on usage basis.

33. step 1
Configuring AWS Auto Scaling with AWS ELB
elb-create-lb my-load-balancer --headers
--listener "lb-port=80,instance-port=8080, protocol=HTTP"
--availability-zones us-west-2c
lb-port -- load balancer port
instance-port -- app server port to which request
needs to be forwarded
my-load-balancer -- name for my load balancer

34. step 2
Create a launch configuration
as-create-launch-config my-lconfig --image-id ami-e38823c8a
--instance-type m1.small --key my-key-pair
--group my-security-group
my-lconfig -- name for launch configuration
ami-e38823c8a -- name for Amazon Machine Image (AMI) to be
launched during scaling
m1.small -- Amazon EC2 instance size
my-key-pair -- Key pair / security group settings for the Amazon
EC2 instances
my-security-group -- security group for instance

35. step 3
Create an AWS Auto Scale Group
as-create-auto-scaling-group my-as-group --availability-zones us-west-2c
--launch-configuration my-lconfig --max-size 11 --min-size 3 --cooldown 180
--desired-capacity 2 --load-balancers my-load-balancer
my-load-balancer -- LB name in which the new Amazon EC2 instances launched will
be attached
my-as-group -- Name Auto Scale group
us-west-2c -- availability zone in which the auto scaled amazon EC2 instances will
be launched
11/3 -- Maximum/Minimum number of Amazon EC2 instances maintained by Auto
Scale
Desired capacity is an important component of the as-create-auto-scaling-group
command. Although it is an optional parameter, desired capacity tells Auto Scaling
the number of instances you want to run initially.
To adjust the number of instances you want running in your Auto Scaling group, you
change the value of --desired-capacity. If you don't specify --desired-capacity, its
value is the same as minimum group size

36. step 4
this step is not available in Auto Scaling
API
Configure the Auto scaling Triggers / Alarms
as-create-or-update-trigger my-as-trigger
--auto-scaling-group my-as-group --namespace "AWS/EC2"
--measure CPUUtilization --statistic Average
--dimensions "AutoScalingGroupName=my-as-group"
--period 60 --lower-threshold 20 --upper-treshold 80
--load-breach-increment"=-2" --upper-breach-increment 4
--breach-duration 180
Measure the average CPU of the Auto Scale Group
Scale out by 4 Amazon EC2 instances. Scale down by 2
Amazon EC instances
Lower CPU Limit is 20% and Upper CPU Limit is 80%

37. shutdown auto scaling
group
Shutdown auto-scaling group - require 3 commands
as-update-auto-scaling-group bbd4me-as-group --min-size 0
--max-size 0 --region us-west-2
as-describe-auto-scaling-groups bbd4me-as-group --headers
--region us-west-2
as-delete-auto-scaling-group bbd4me-as-group
--force-delete --region us-west-2

38. Thank you for
your attention.
Questions?