Close
  • Latest News
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Video
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Logo
Logo
  • Latest News
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Video
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Latest News
    • Reviews

    Adventures with Amazon EC2

    Written by

    Jason Brooks
    Published April 28, 2011
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.

      This week we re-launched labs.eweek.com to serve as a home base eWEEK Labs team, and as a place to test out some of the products and services we cover in more “real world” setting than what we get within the confines of our San Francisco lab.

      To that end, we’ve set up shop in the cloud. We intend to move around among cloud services from time to time, but, as with so many of the products we encounter, we’ve begun our cloudy adventures at Amazon’s EC2 service.

      I spun up a fresh copy of WordPress 3.1 atop Ubuntu 10.04, created a child theme based on that project’s default, Twenty Ten theme, and imported all pointers to our reviews and analysis pieces from eWEEK.com, as well as the past few years of blog posts from our assorted Labs blogs.

      Over at AWS, I opted for the service’s smallest instance size, t1.micro, figuring that if and when we melted our server with overuse, the experience would be educational. After a few quick tests with the open source load testing tool siege, I could tell that it wouldn’t take a whole lot to overmatch the t1.micro instance type, so I took a few steps to buttress the site.

      I installed WP Super Cache to conserve resources by serving up mostly static pages. With the caching in place, my test server stood up much better under the same test load. I also offloaded commenting functions to Disqus–which I’ve had my eye on for a while, anyhow, as a way to integrate Twitter streams with site comments. And, because looked pretty easy to set up, I hooked the site up to Amazon’s Cloudfront CDN to serve up static content like images, css and javascript files.

      I thought we might get along OK for a while with this configuration, but the first big test would come on newsletter day, when a significant number of visitors would hit the site within a small window. Wednesday morning, when those newsletter visitors starting hitting the site, it didn’t take long for our shiny new WordPress site to crash.

      When the site stopped responding, I stopped the instance at Amazon and started it back up at a larger size. I hadn’t set up my computer at home with the EC2 API tools, but they’re available in the Ubuntu repositories, so it was easy to take care of that. Eric Hammond has a great howto on embiggening EC2.

      I ratcheted the instance up to a c1.medium size, and associated the larger instance with the site’s elastic IP address, which took care of the outage, and then set about figuring out how to ratchet it back down. I’d been prepared for our site to have trouble with the micro instance size, but expected it to fare better than it did.

      I turned next to our server logs and noticed that our newsletter included a broken link (something I should have caught earlier), which was leading to a lot of 404 error. The WP Super Cache plugin doesn’t cache 404s by default, but I figured out how to configure it to do so. We’ll see what effect the more expansive caching policy has for the site. I’m sure there are plenty of tweaks we’ll have to make along the way–before packing up the site and trying something new.

      Looking ahead, I’m interested figuring out how much more of the site could be served from S3–Amazon CTO Werner Vogels runs his blog entirely from S3.

      Jason Brooks
      Jason Brooks
      As Editor in Chief of eWEEK Labs, Jason Brooks manages the Labs team and is responsible for eWEEK's print edition. Brooks joined eWEEK in 1999, and has covered wireless networking, office productivity suites, mobile devices, Windows, virtualization, and desktops and notebooks. Jason's coverage is currently focused on Linux and Unix operating systems, open-source software and licensing, cloud computing and Software as a Service.

      Get the Free Newsletter!

      Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends & analysis

      Get the Free Newsletter!

      Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends & analysis

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Artificial Intelligence

      9 Best AI 3D Generators You Need...

      Sam Rinko - June 25, 2024 0
      AI 3D Generators are powerful tools for many different industries. Discover the best AI 3D Generators, and learn which is best for your specific use case.
      Read more
      Cloud

      RingCentral Expands Its Collaboration Platform

      Zeus Kerravala - November 22, 2023 0
      RingCentral adds AI-enabled contact center and hybrid event products to its suite of collaboration services.
      Read more
      Artificial Intelligence

      8 Best AI Data Analytics Software &...

      Aminu Abdullahi - January 18, 2024 0
      Learn the top AI data analytics software to use. Compare AI data analytics solutions & features to make the best choice for your business.
      Read more
      Latest News

      Zeus Kerravala on Networking: Multicloud, 5G, and...

      James Maguire - December 16, 2022 0
      I spoke with Zeus Kerravala, industry analyst at ZK Research, about the rapid changes in enterprise networking, as tech advances and digital transformation prompt...
      Read more
      Video

      Datadog President Amit Agarwal on Trends in...

      James Maguire - November 11, 2022 0
      I spoke with Amit Agarwal, President of Datadog, about infrastructure observability, from current trends to key challenges to the future of this rapidly growing...
      Read more
      Logo

      eWeek has the latest technology news and analysis, buying guides, and product reviews for IT professionals and technology buyers. The site’s focus is on innovative solutions and covering in-depth technical content. eWeek stays on the cutting edge of technology news and IT trends through interviews and expert analysis. Gain insight from top innovators and thought leaders in the fields of IT, business, enterprise software, startups, and more.

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Advertisers

      Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on eWeek and our other IT-focused platforms.

      Advertise with Us

      Menu

      • About eWeek
      • Subscribe to our Newsletter
      • Latest News

      Our Brands

      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms
      • About
      • Contact
      • Advertise
      • Sitemap
      • California – Do Not Sell My Information

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      © 2024 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×