Cloud Platform SetUp | Bansi's Java Musings

Cloud Platform SetUp | Bansi's Java Musings

EC2 instances can be set up either within our VPC or outside. As a first iteration, I thought I'd test the architecture first outside the VPC, so we can make a comparison when we move it within the VPC.

Either way, Intuit recommends using the following Red Hat AMI (it has all the patches etc. already installed): ami-6e148707 (NOTE: this is specifically configured for the US-East zone. The other zones have other recommended AMIs).

Here are some pointers to get going in the VPC:

• First off, you need access to QDC, because the tunnel to the VPC is from there. Here are instructions to request access: http://iitoei.intuit.com/iitoei/CSD_RB_Quincy_Access
• In the AWS admin console, go to AMI and use "ami-6e148707". Click "Launch".
• In the next window it's important to select "VPC". I have set up two subnets for us, you can choose either one. One can also set up an EC2 instance outside the VPC, but I guess we need to make our POC environment as realistic as possible. It would be interesting to compare the overhead the VPC adds compared to instances outside the VPC.
• We should use a naming convention "PracticePOCx", where x is the next number. I've already created 1.
• When it asks you to select a Security Group, select "Practice-Platform-POC". This security group allows all outgoing traffic, incoming SSH, incoming on port 8080 (for direct JBoss access on HTTP), incoming HTTP / HTTPS (ports 80 and 443), and incoming TCP ports 9990 and 9999 (to access the JBoss management console and to be able to deploy apps from an IDE to the server).
• Once the instance is launched, click on it, and you should see the IP address of it.
• You have to use "ec2-user" to log in. E.g.: ssh -i /Users/aschutte/Downloads/PracticePOC1.pem ec2-user@10.80.130.28

It is very useful to be able to deploy and redeploy the app directly from an IDE to an EC2 instance in the cloud. AWS has an Eclipse SDK for this, but for IntelliJ, this is a bit tricky. One has to a) configure an admin user and password on JBoss, b) configure the JBoss management ports in standalone.xml to bind to any address (0.0.0.0, this is OK for the POC but should not be done in production), c) open these JBoss management ports on that EC2 instance (the Red Hat firewall, it is already opened in the above-mentioned security group), and d) then configure a remote JBoss instance in IntelliJ. Here's a screenshot of an example configuration in IntelliJ:

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