Day 47: Exploring AWS Elastic Beanstalk and EC2 Tasks

Today, we dive into AWS Elastic Beanstalk, a powerful platform for deploying and scaling web applications. Additionally, we’ll walk through deploying a web game, 2048, on Elastic Beanstalk and testing our knowledge with hands-on tasks involving AWS services like EC2, Auto Scaling, and CloudWatch.

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What is AWS Elastic Beanstalk? 🌱

AWS Elastic Beanstalk is a service that simplifies the deployment and scaling of web applications. Designed for developers, it supports multiple programming languages and runtime environments like:

• Java

• .NET

• PHP

• Node.js

• Python

• Ruby

• Go

• Docker

Why AWS Elastic Beanstalk? 🤔

Before Elastic Beanstalk, developers struggled to share software modules across geographically distributed teams. Elastic Beanstalk solves this problem by providing a platform to easily share and deploy applications across devices.

Advantages of AWS Elastic Beanstalk ✅

• Highly Scalable: Automatically handles scaling to meet traffic demands.

• Fast and Simple: Easy to begin with minimal configuration.

• Quick Deployment: Allows rapid deployment of applications.

• Supports Multi-Tenant Architecture: Suitable for diverse users and teams.

• Simplifies Operations: Manages infrastructure tasks like provisioning and monitoring.

• Cost-Efficient: Pay only for the AWS resources you use.

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Components of AWS Elastic Beanstalk 🧩

1. Application Version: A specific iteration or release of an application’s codebase.

2. Environment Tier: Infrastructure type (e.g., web server or worker environment).

3. Environment: Collection of AWS resources running an application version.

4. Configuration Template: Defines environment settings like instance types and scaling options.

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Elastic Beanstalk Environments 🌐

• Web Server Environments:
  Front-end facing, accessible via URL by clients.

• Worker Environments:
  Backend applications or microservices, often processing tasks asynchronously.

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Task 1: Deploying the 2048 Game on AWS Elastic Beanstalk 🎮

Let’s deploy a simple web-based game, 2048, using Elastic Beanstalk.

Steps:

1. Prepare the Game Application:

   • Download the 2048 game source code from GitHub.

   • Ensure the codebase is zipped for deployment.

2. Log in to AWS Management Console:

   • Navigate to AWS Elastic Beanstalk.

3. Create a New Application:

   • Click Create Application.

   • Provide a name, like "2048 Game".

4. Choose a Platform:

   • Select the runtime environment that matches your game (e.g., Node.js, Python).

5. Upload the Source Code:

   • Upload the zipped game file.

6. Deploy the Application:

   • Click Deploy and wait for Elastic Beanstalk to set up resources.

7. Test the Game:

   • Open the provided URL to ensure the game is running.

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Additional Work: AWS Knowledge Tasks 💻 📈

As part of the 90 Days of DevOps Challenge, test your understanding of AWS services with the following hands-on tasks.

Task 1: Launch an EC2 Instance and Deploy a Web Application

Steps:

1. Launch an EC2 Instance:

   • Log in to the AWS Management Console.

   • Navigate to EC2 and launch an instance.

   • Choose an Amazon Linux AMI.

2. Connect Using SSH:

   • Use your terminal or command prompt:

       ssh -i "your-key.pem" ec2-user@your-ec2-public-ip
     

3. Install a Web Server:

   • Update the instance:

       sudo apt-get update -y
     

   • Install Apache:

       sudo apt-get install nginx -y  
       sudo systemctl start nginx  
       sudo systemctl enable nginx
     

4. Deploy a Simple Web Application:

   • Upload your HTML files to /var/www/html.

5. Monitor with CloudWatch:

   • Set up CloudWatch to monitor CPU utilization and resolve issues.

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Task 2: Configure Auto Scaling with AWS

Steps:

1. Create an Auto Scaling Group:

   • In the AWS Management Console, navigate to Auto Scaling.

   • Define scaling policies based on CPU usage or network traffic.

2. Monitor with CloudWatch:

   • Set CloudWatch alarms to track performance metrics.

3. Verify with AWS CLI:

   • Use the CLI to ensure correct scaling:

       aws autoscaling describe-auto-scaling-groups
     

   • Verify instances:

       aws ec2 describe-instances
     

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Key Takeaways ✨

• AWS Elastic Beanstalk simplifies application deployment and scaling with minimal effort.

• EC2 Instances are flexible compute resources for hosting applications and testing configurations.

• CloudWatch and Auto Scaling ensure applications remain resilient and cost-efficient under variable workloads.