Scaling in Amazon EC2

[mistermaikcr1]

Hi,

I'm planning to move my ColdFusion framework to the Cloud, Amazon EC2.  It will expose web services as need it for mobile devices and also regular web sites.

My framework requires a relation database to manage users, authentication, etc.  I want to be able to scale adding more frontend web servers.

What do you think?

Do you think session management is going to be a problem?

What about hosting my files in amazon S3? or just in the local web server?

I think the current AMI with cold Fusion 10 is a good option.

I am kind of new to CF. Any advice or other considerations are welcome.

Thanks a lot

[Anit_Kumar]

Hi,

Please find the link for Amazon Cloud Services at http://helpx.adobe.com/coldfusion/release-note/coldfusion-10-cloud.html. A list of FAQs are available at http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion-family/coldfusion-amazon-web-services/faq.html

Hope that helps.

Regards,

Anit Kumar

[mistermaikcr1]

Thanks, but I am trying to figure out how to deploy two different AMIs or 2 web servers using coldFusion in the Cloud (for the same application). And later add more as needed.

I haven't been able to find a clear example/architecture/design on this subject, using ColdFusion.

I know it is possible with regular IIS, Apache implementations, but not sure about special considerations using CF.

Probably is just the same.

[ChKumar]

ColdFusion AMIs are a) CF+IIS+MySQL+WIN2008 b) CF+Apache+MySQL+Ubuntu12.0.4 with connector configured for all sites

So when you create an instance with CF AMI you get these preinstalled. You can add instances of web servers, additional softwares, remove anything that you dont want. We do not put any special restriction so you can treat the new instance the way you want. However do create a custom AMI for you purpose.

Thanks,

Chandan Kumar

[mistermaikcr1]

Awesone thanks a lot!

[ChKumar · Accepted solution]

Comments Inline.

>My framework requires a relation database to manage users, authentication, etc.  I want to be able to scale adding more frontend web servers.

>What do you think?

For scaling you can use elastic load balancer, add webservers or additional app servers. But it is important that you validate your architechture with your application first, depending on the traffic you are expecting.

In general  its a good practice to use either relational or NoSQL database to handle authentication/client management. Ideally you should be looking at a seperate DB server for scalability and easier maintainance. You can use services provided by Amazon like RDS or of your choice (refer https://aws.amazon.com/running_databases/)

However if the setup is small you can use the MySQL DB available with ColdFusion's AMI

>Do you think session management is going to be a problem?

While using two webservers? I dont think so. You can also

1) have sticky sessions enabled

2) handle session using an elastic cache

BTW a web service should ideally be stateless.

>What about hosting my files in amazon S3? or just in the local web server?

Both are valid. ColdFusion AMI is EBS backed, so files would persist locally too. But do save a custom AMI for your purpose with all the configuration/local files.

>I think the current AMI with cold Fusion 10 is a good option.

Yes, even I think so

>I am kind of new to CF. Any advice or other considerations are welcome.

As a best practice when you are using your server in production, you should implement security lock down guide for CF10. It hardens your server against security attacks.

Thnaks,

Chandan Kumar