Application Development - eWeek


Application Development: LABS GALLERY: Amazon's AWS Toolkit Provides Total Eclipse Integration

By Jeff Cogswell on 2009-08-24


Amazon recently released a plug-in for Eclipse called AWS Toolkit for Eclipse. This plug-in lets you develop software for the Amazon Web Services cloud without leaving Eclipse. Within Eclipse, you can manage and configure your AWS servers, as well as deploy and debug to the AWS servers.

By Jeff Cogswell

  • of

Installation

As is always the case with Eclipse, installation of the plug-in couldn't be easier. In Eclipse, I clicked Help -> Install New Software to bring up this dialog box. I then filled in the Work With box with "http://aws.amazon.com/eclipse".

Items to Be Installed

Eclipse located the items to be installed: EC2 Management, Simple DB Management and AWS Toolkit for Eclipse Core.

AWS Configuration

Once installed, the plug-in provides access to AWS configuration, as well as features such as the ability to configure remote hosts.

Amazon Account Info

The first step is configuring the plug-in with your own Amazon account information.

Apache Tomcat

On the local end, you need to have an Apache Tomcat installation running. (Tomcat is open source and easy to install.) You can configure Tomcat from within Eclipse.

Sample Code

Next you can enter some sample code. This example code just prints out information about the running server. Remember, the code will run on the server and the output will be displayed in a Web browser.

Initial Testing

For initial testing, you can run your code against the local Tomcat installation.

Running Locally

When running locally, you'll see the results of the Web page displaying the information about your local machine.

Running the Code

Now the real fun begins: running the code under a cluster of AWS servers. First you must configure the servers, which is easy. (Note the warning that you'll be charged for the time the server is running until you shut it down.)

  • More slideshows

Advertisement

FEATURED SPONSOR MESSAGE

Microsoft Sponsored Resource Center

Windows Azure is a public cloud platform for building, hosting and scaling applications. Try Windows Azure free for 90 days and get 20GB outbound and unlimited inbound data transfer.

Learn more

Brought to you by

 
eWEEK Quick LInks