Single EC2 Instance Part 1 - An Overview

We are going to set up an EC2 instance for our client. In this demo, we will be setting up a Plesk server running on CentOS 7.

In the diagram below, the colored components shows the Plesk server itself. The other components give our client's Plesk server these features:
- High availability
- Backup and restore

An overview of the parts in this demo.

Here's a breakdown of all the components.

1. EC2 instance (Plesk Server): CPU and RAM of our client's Plesk Server. This component is not highly available. If the host server dies, the EC2 instance dies.

2. EBS volume (for "Plesk Server"): virtual hard disk of Plesk Server. This component is automatically created when we create the EC2 instance later on. This component is highly available by default.

(The next 2 components give the highly available feature.)

3. CloudWatch alarm: We need to create a CloudWatch alarm to monitor our client's server, and configure the alarm to "recover" the EC2 instance in the next available host server in AWS when the current host server fails. (There's no way to emulate or test this "recover" process. We just have to trust that the CloudWatch alarm does what it does. More details about the "recover" process is available at https://cloudonaut.io/high-availability-is-a-no-brainer-ec2-auto-recovery/.)

4. Elastic IP: Kind of like reserving a public IP address for our EC2 instance. EC2 instances are randomly assigned public IP addresses when they are created. The EC2 instance created by the CloudWatch alarm's "recover" process will have a randomly assigned public IP address, unless the original EC2 instance has an Elastic IP address associated with it.

(The rest of the components below give the backup and restore feature.)

5. EC2 instance (N2WS Cloud Protection Manager): This EC2 instance runs the backup server.
6. EBS volume (for backup server): contains the OS of the backup server.
7. EBS volume (for storing backups): self-explanatory.

8. IAM Role: The backup server needs to have enough permissions to backup ("read" type of access) an EC2 instance and recover ("create" type of access) an EC2 instance. AWS allows us to create "roles" that have specific permissions, and these "roles" can be assigned to entities that need those permissions. In this demo, we will be creating a role with enough permissions for the backup server to do its job, and assign that role to the backup server.

Let's get to work....

Part 2 - The Client's Server

Single EC2 Instance - Table of Contents