Running Your Startup on Amazon Web Services Alex Iskold Founder/CEO AdaptiveBlue Feature Writer ReadWriteWeb

Amazon Web Services (AWS) - robust, scalable and affordable infrastructure for cloud computing. This session is about:

We will cover: The Basics of Cloud Computing The Benefits of Using Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services Stack How AdaptiveBlue is using AWS How you can get started using AWS

Basics of Cloud Computing

Scalable Hardware Layer

Basics of Cloud Computing Scalable Hardware Layer Software Infrastructure Layer Grid Service Storage Service Queue Service

Example: Storage Service Storage Service Storage Service Storage Service Storage Service New Server The data is automatically re-partitioned/re-balanced to take advantage of the new server

5 Benefits of Using Amazon Web Services

1.Pay-per use model You are only charged for disk space, CPU time and bandwidth that you use.

2. Instant scalability Your Service automatically scales on AWS stack.

3. Reliable/Redundant/Secure Infrequent outages (so far). Data is redundant in the cloud. All services have built-in security. * Soon will add Comprehensive to the list.

4. Most services accessed via simple REST/SOAP API Libraries are available in all major languages. Minimal learning curve.

5. Amazon - Experience & Commitment Amazon has been doing this for ~15 years. Company-wide commitment to AWS.

Amazon Web Services Stack

Simple Database Service (SimpleDB) Elastic Cloud Service (EC2) Simple Storage Service (S3) Simple Queue Service (SQS)

Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) On-demand grid

EC2 in a Nutshell Machine Image (OS + Apps) Usage: Create Machine Image Deploy the image to S3 Start 1 or more instances Use it as regular machine(s) Main Options: Dynamic/Static IPS Choose cores Choose locations Persistence via EBS

Sample EC2 Use Cases Batch Processing All instances are configured with the same code. Each instance operates on a subset of data. Partitions are specified in configuration file. Web Service All instances are configured with the same code. One or more instances are configured as load balancers (HAProxy for example). DNS Server distributes requests between load balancers.

EC2 vs. Web Hosting Company Good Instantly add new instances Full-control over the machines and choice of the environment Likely cheaper (but depends on your exact situation) Bad Need to put the images together and manage instances No dedicated technical support (but there is premium support and RightScale solutions)

Simple Storage Service (S3) Simple Storage Service (S3) Large media and everything else storage.

S3 in a Nutshell Client Idea: Put/Get objects into buckets based on unique keys. Main Features: Public/Private access. Support for large objects. Amazon S3 Bucket 1 Bucket N … Put objectGet object

Sample S3 Use Cases Image/Video storage Put your media once on S3 and then serve it up Reads are 10 times cheaper than writes! Serialize your Java Objects Define unique key based on the object attributes Write out binary serialized version to a stream Write bytes to S3 Read them back when needed

Simple Database Service (SimpleDB) Simple Database Service (SimpleDB) Basic database and indexing service

Simple DB in a Nutshell Client Idea: Create flat database with auto-indexed tables. Main Features: Each attribute is indexed. Record structure is flexible. Basic operators in queries Supports sorting. Simple DB Domain Record 1 Put record Get record Query records Key1Attributes: A1,A2… Record N Key2Attributes: A1,A2… …

Sample SimpleDB Use Cases Index Media files stored on S3 Use the same key as on S3 Write the record with each metadata element as attribute Store flat objects Use SimpleDB as a storage for non-nested data

Simple Queue Service (SQS) Simple Queue Service (SQS) Infinite Asynchronous Queue

SQS in a Nutshell Writer Idea: Create an infinite asynchronous queue. Main Features: Multiple queues Upto 4K messages Message Locking SQS Queue Message 1 Send Message Receive Message Message N … Reader

Sample SQS Use Cases Twitter Friend Update For each update generate a task to update friends Process updates in order Publish/Subscribe Post messages to the queue to inform multiple subscribers Process Pipeline Use different queues to put, for example, and order through a pipeline.

How AdaptiveBlue uses Amazon Web Services

AdaptiveBlue Overview We develop browser enhancement technologies that deliver contextual relevant information into the user current page: 1. What did your friends and other people think about it? 2. How popular is this book right now? 3. What are additional relevant links for this book?

AdaptiveBlue & AWS Background One of the first companies to use AWS Started with using S3 Now using S3, SimpleDB, EC2 and Commerce Service

AdaptiveBlue AWS Architecture Web Browser 1 Web Browser N … SimpleDB EC2 S3 WS1 LB WSnWS1 LB WSn

AdaptiveBlue & AWS On EC2: We are running web service and load balancers On S3: We are storing XML representation of books, music, movies, stocks, wines, etc. as well as XML of user profiles. On SimpleDB: Records of interactions between users and things they are looking at, liking or commenting. Records that map user ids to other services Records that map between our internal object keys and URLs for this object around the web.

Noteworthy usage We turn SimpleDB into relational database via redundancy. We have person and object domains. Each time when the user interacts with an object we write a record with USERNAME/OBJECT_KEY pair into 2 domains - one object domain, one person domain. This way we can instantly retrieve recent objects for a person and recent people for each object.

AdaptiveBlue Recommends AWS We love Amazon Web Services and couldnt have built AdaptiveBlue without them. Thanks to AWS we scale today to hundreds of thousands of users. Our current costs are < 2K per month. Amazon team has been nothing less than outstanding in supporting us and helping us architect correct solutions. We recommend AWS to everyone who asks, because we believe that it offers unprecedented head start, scalability and savings.

Amazon Web Services Resources All you need - basic info, getting started, pricing, tutorials, code, forums - all on AWS home page: