Rails app on EC2

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hello,

I'm thinking to move my app to ec2, but Im reading that amazon does not guarantee that my instance doesn't die?

So my question how can people use it for rails, and what does they do when the amazon ec2 instance dies? Do we have any automatic job to get new instance and get the app up and running again with all the gems etc.?

Thanks for any comment :slight_smile:

2

Hello,

I’m thinking to move my app to ec2, but Im reading that amazon does not

guarantee that my instance doesn’t die?

So my question how can people use it for rails, and what does they do when the amazon ec2 instance dies? Do we have any automatic job to get new instance and get the app up and running again with all the gems etc.?

Amazon EC2 has excellent uptime and I usually go with a minimum of 2 instances.

Furthermore, you can set it up so that it automatically spins-up a new instance when one dies or sends a notification so that you can perform a manually boot. Next, Amazon is very different from your traditional hosting companies because they charge by the hour for each active instance. Thus, in order for them to make money, the active instance needs to be running. Otherwise, they will loose money.

You can find many gems on gemcutter.org for interfacing with Amazon EC2 as well as their other services. For a current listing of AMIs, I would recommend directing those questions to Amazon. Lastly, there are alternatives for using EC2 like Engine Yard and Rightscale to name a few. Also, there are other architectures like Google App Engine. Thus, I would recommend doing your research as well as test driving these different systems.

Good luck,

-Conrad

3

Thanks for your reply :slight_smile:

Well as I understand when instance dies you could lose your static ip and you can lose all your data on the instance?

So I also need to find another service to host the database.

But I understand that all those type of issues can be fixed by using Rightscale or maybe Engine Yard.

They handle the notification when instance die and create another one for you with all the data it needs?

Conrad Taylor wrote:

4

Thanks for your reply :slight_smile:

Well as I understand when instance dies you could lose your static ip

and you can lose all your data on the instance?

Amazon Elastic IP address (i.e. static IP address) is connected to your

Amazon account and not the instance. Next, you can also set it up so

that it takes snap-shots of your database as well as your instances. This

you’ll have to do whether you’re using Amazon or a traditional hosting

service.

So I also need to find another service to host the database.

But I understand that all those type of issues can be fixed by using

Rightscale or maybe Engine Yard.

Yes, Rightscale and Engine makes interfacing to Amazon much easier

instead of using Amazon directly. However, there’s definitely a cost

associated to their services in addition to the Amazon cost.

They handle the notification when instance die and create another one

for you with all the data it needs?

Yes, this is possible with Rightscale and I’m sure that Engine Yard supports

similar features.

Good luck,

-Conrad

5

Quoting Jamal Soueidan <lists@ruby-forum.com>:

Hello,

I'm thinking to move my app to ec2, but Im reading that amazon does not guarantee that my instance doesn't die?

So my question how can people use it for rails, and what does they do when the amazon ec2 instance dies? Do we have any automatic job to get new instance and get the app up and running again with all the gems etc.?

My instance on Amazon now has an uptime of 143 days. Use Elastic Block Storage (EBS) for persistent data (e.g. databases, application code, and configuration data).

Yeah I know I should have down notification and restart/reboot more automated, but I haven't needed it yet.

Jeffrey