!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!The$Wisdom$of$Clouds:$26$AWS$Tips$!!

Top$Tips$by$Cloud$Pros,$for$Cloud$Pros$!!
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We!turned!to!the!cloud!community!to!collect!the!best!AWS!tips!from!every!corner!of!the!cloud.!The!results!literally!
blew!us!away.!Its!not!easy!to!boil!down!knowledge!to!a!line!or!two.!Behold!the!wisdom!of!clouds,!brought!to!you!in!
easyAtoAscan!AWS!tips!you!can!start!implementing!today!!
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!CloudEndure!2014

I. Cloud&Spending&Tips!!
Keep$RDS$instances$small$until$you$need$to$use$more!
We all know that the bulk of the money is being spent on RDS and RDS is the least flexible part of the
infra as far as stopping and starting an instance to save money. You can only delete an instance after
backing it up and restore it again when you need it. But this takes sometimes over a day to do. To save
money, all you need to do is make a change to the instance type to be a db.t1.micro when you no longer
need it and change it to a larger size when you need to use it again. The change in instance type only
takes a few minutes.!
Frank&Ng,&Head&of&Technical&Operations&

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Schedule$Automation$!
Always run automatic scheduler to switch off and On the instances in AWS to cut the cost by as much as
50% (!)!
Mohammed&Sajid,&System&Administrator&at&EF&

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Power$Down$for$the$Weekend!
Turn!off!your!development!environment!during!the!weekends,!holidays!or!when!is!not!in!use!by!your!developers!
to!save!some!bucks.!
Oscar&Salguero,&Cofounder&CTO&&&Lead&Mobile&Developer&at&Geopon&

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!CloudEndure!2014

 Throw$out$unattached$IP$Addresses!!
Remember!that!an!Elastic!IP!address!when!not!in!use!will!be!charged!for!every!hour!it!is!not!attached!to!an!
instance!
Eugene&Bell,&SMTS&at&Pivotal!
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!CloudEndure!2014

II.#Instance#Management!

Tag$EBS$Volumes!!
Indicate!name!of!the!instance!and!purpose!(boot,!database,!etc)!so!you!know!what!that!available!state!volume!
was!used!for!
Isaac&Bentley,&Lead&NetOps&Engineer&at&FreeMoney&Network&
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Micro$Instances$Perform$Better$at$64$Bits$
Always!choose!64Jbit!when!running!Micro!Instances.!This!is!guaranteed!to!give!you!better!performance!than!the!
32Jbit!counterpart.!You!will!see!the!difference!when!you!are!running!batch!processing!that!deals!with!large!files.!
Oleg&Chornenko,&Software&Engineer!
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!CloudEndure!2014

III.

Automation)&"Scaling!
Build$Programmatically$$
Always!look!at!how!to!build!your!environment!from!the!bottom!up!programmatically.!Even!if!you!think!
something!could!never!fail!or!never!be!deleted!or!modified,!if!you!don't!have!a!path!to!recreate!it,!you're!
going!to!be!sad.!
James&Burns,&Security&Manager&at&True&Link&Financial!

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Scaling!Can!Trigger!ELB!Errors!!
ELB!is!an!awesome!tool,!but!returns!'503'!errors!when!scaling!up!or!down.!This!can!happen!every!day!if!your!
traffic!cycles!with!business!hours.!Monitor!ELB_5XX!on!Cloudwatch!or!logs!on!S3,!as!tools!like!Newrelic!run!on!
the!app!layer!and!don't!see!these!errors.!If!you!are!seeing!many!errors,!try!adding!another!availability!zone!J!
when!we!moved!from!2!to!3!AZ's,!our!ELB!5XX!errors!were!eliminated.!
Ran&Rubinstein,&Ops&at&Cloudinary!
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3 Tips on Using CloudFormation for Production Deployments!!
1.!Inject!script!into!User!Data!that!automatically!installs!the!latest!version!of!your!application.!!
2.!When!CloudFormation!is!finished,!you!can!validate!the!deployment,!then!"going!live"!entails!simply!
switching!your!ELB!to!the!newly!deployed!version.!!
3.!If!you!need!to!roll!back,!simply!point!the!ELB!to!the!"old"!version.!
Gerry&Miller,&Founder&&&Chief&Technologist&at&Cloudticity!
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!CloudEndure!2014

 Create Dependencies Asynchronously

When!automating!your!cloud!management!framework,!try!to!create!all!dependencies!asynchronously!and!
verify!them!on!usage.!AWS!ruby!api!for!examples!sometimes!doesn't!even!give!an!error!for!a!missing!
dependency.!
Gil&Zellner,&DevOps&Engineer&at&Get&Taxi!

cfndsl!Trumps!json!!
When!provisioning!your!infrastructure!using!cloudJformation!use!cfndsl!tool!to!write!the!cloudJformation!
template!than!the!error!prone!json!format.!
Ashley&Avileli,&IT&Manager&at&BGL!

Replace$Outdated$S3$Objects$with$Glacier$!
You!don't!have!to!delete!out!of!date!S3!objects.!AWS!S3!has!an!automated!process!that!allows!you!to!transfer!
objects!over!to!Glacier.!We!have!discovered!a!large!savings!in!storage!by!doing!this.!The!part!our!engineering!
team!loves!most!is!that!we!can!offer!a!storage!solution!that!allows!us!to!cheaply!manage!and!keep!data!
around!for!much!longer!periods!of!time!without!the!fear!of!a!high!cost!in!the!end.!
James&Weatherell,&Sr.&Cloud&Engineer&at&RBM&Technologies!

!CloudEndure!2014

IV.

Backup'&'Recovery!

Start$with$backup$replication$
Its!a!perfect!place!to!start!with!AWS.!!It!allows!you!to!get!a!feel!for!cloud!services!while!being!a!low!risk!place!to!
start!from!a!day!to!day!operation!perspective.!!It!allows!you!to!"dip!your!toe"!in!the!cloud.!
Rudy&Bochek,&Emerging&Technology&&&User&Support&at&Quarles&&&Brady&

Utilize$S3$storage$on$Linux$Server$Backups!
This!allows!rapid!recovery!and!proper!DR!testing!with!little!cost!
Nathan&Finch,&IT&Manager&at&Warmoth

!CloudEndure!2014

V.

The$Cloud$is$in$the$Details$!
Assign$Distinct$IP$Addresses$to$Avoid$Conflict!
Use!a!172.x.x.x!for!your!VPC!address!space!when!creating!a!VPC!they!are!the!least!used!and!thus!will!cause!less!
conflict!with!your!local!subnets!like!10.x.x.x!and!192.x.x.x!
Ahmed&Attalla,&Network&Engineer&at&Include&

Take$Advantage$of$AWS$Path$Name$Conventions$
Due!to!s3!design,!the!place!files!where!files!are!stored!on!the!physical!infrastructure!is!based!off!of!the!prefix!of!the!
key!name!J!i.e.,!if!all!images!are!prefixed!'images/....jpg',!it!is!highly!likely!that!all!these!images!with!!same!prefix!will!
be!stored!on!the!same!physical!hardware!:J)"!
Shiva&Rajagopalan,&VP&

Keep$Your$Instances$Stateless!
Don't!store!application!state!on!servers:!logs!offloaded!via!syslog,!uploads!direct!to!s3,!sessions!in!ElastiCache,!async!
queues!for!long!running!post!processes.!
Yitzchok&WIllroth,&Director&

Use$dashes$rather$than$periods$as$separators!!
If!you!want!to!access!your!S3!bucket!over!SSL,!using!a!"."!in!the!bucket!name!will!cause!you!to!get!certificate!
mismatch!errors.!Since!you!can't!rename!buckets,!you!would!need!to!copy!everything!to!a!new!bucket.!'J'!is!a!more!
suitable!separator.!
Declan&Tarrant,&Lead&Software&Architect&at&Alanya

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About&CloudEndure!
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Business as Usual. Always.

CloudEndure is responsible for making sure customers can always focus

on their business, without worrying about downtime.
With CloudEndure they can always count on continuous operations in the
cloud, so that their business is up and running nonstop. Wherever they
are, whatever happens, its always business as usual with CloudEndure.
Overview

Established in 2012, CloudEndure is the brain-child of a team of

successful serial entrepreneurs: Ofer Gadish, Ofir Ehrlich, Gil Shai, and
Leonid Feinberg. This dynamic team combines proven technical and
business skills accumulated over more than a decade at Israeli and
international IT companies, including both startups and established
corporations. Their combined experience in building solutions tailored to
all types of customers enables the CloudEndure team to provide an
enterprise-grade product that is suited to the needs of businesses of all
sizes and varieties.

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