Managing Your Infrastructure as Code by Travis Williams, Solutions Architect, AWS

© 2015, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Travis Williams, Enterprise Solutions Architect
August 17th 2016
Infrastructure as Code
Introduction to Best Practices on AWS

Learning Objectives
• Choosing the right EC2 instances
• Infrastructure as code
• AWS services that help you manage your infrastructure
as code
• Best practices for managing your AWS infrastructure,
host configuration, and applications

Choosing the Right Amazon EC2 Instance
EC2 Instance types are optimized for different use cases & come in
multiple sizes. This allows you to optimally scale resources to your
workload requirements.
AWS utilizes Intel® Xeon® processors for EC2 Instances providing
customers with high performance and value.
Consider the following when choosing your instances: Core count,
Memory size, Storage size & type, Network performance, & CPU
technologies.
Hurry Up & Go Idle - A larger compute instance can save you time and
money, therefore paying more per hour for a shorter amount of time
can be less expensive.

Get the Intel® Advantage
Intel’s latest 22nm Haswell microarchitecture on new C4 instances,
with custom Intel® Xeon® v3 processors, provides new features:
Haswell microarchitecture has better branch prediction; greater
efficiency at prefetching instructions and data; along with other
improvements that can boost existing applications’ performance by
30% or more.
P state and C state control provides the ability to individually tune each
cores performance and sleep states to improve application
performance.
Intel® AVX2.0 instructions can double the floating-point performance for
compute-intensive workloads over Intel® AVX, and provide additional
instructions useful for compression and encryption.

Intel® Processor Technologies
Intel® AVX – Get dramatically better performance for highly
parallel HPC workloads such as life science engineering, data
mining, financial analysis, or other technical computing
applications. AVX also enhances image, video, and audio
processing.
Intel® AES-NI – Enhance your security with these new
encryption instructions that reduce the performance penalty
associated with encrypting/decrypting data.
Intel® Turbo Boost Technology – Get more computing power
when you need it with performance that adapts to spikes in your
workload with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 2.0

EC2 Instances with Intel® Technologies

Background
Moving to the cloud and AWS allows you to provision and
manage infrastructure in new ways:
• Infrastructure can be provisioned in seconds
• Scale can be achieved without complicated capacity
planning
• APIs let you interact with infrastructure using languages
typically used in applications

What is Infrastructure as Code?
A practice in which traditional infrastructure management
techniques are supplemented by or replaced with code-
based tools and software development techniques.

Infrastructure as Code workflow
Code
Version
Control
Code
Review
Integrate Deploy

Code
Version
Control
Code
Review
Integrate Deploy
Text Editor
Git/SVN/
Perforce
Review
Tools
Syntax
Validation
Tools
AWS
Services

“It’s all software”
Code
Version
Control
Code
Review
Integrate Deploy
Text Editor
Git/SVN/P
erforce
Review
Tools
Syntax
Validation
Tools
AWS
Services

Application Configuration
AWS Resources
Operating System and Host Configuration

AWS Resources
Operating System and
Host Configuration

AWS Resources
Host Configuration
Infrastructure Resource
Management

AWS Resources
Host Configuration
Management
Host Configuration
Management

AWS Resources
Host Configuration
Management
Host Configuration
Management
Application Deployment

AWS Resources
Host Configuration
AWS CloudFormation
AWS OpsWorks
AWS CodeDeploy

AWS Resources
Host Configuration
AWS CloudFormation
AWS OpsWorks
AWS CodeDeploy
Amazon Virtual Private
Cloud (VPC)
Amazon Elastic Compute
Cloud (EC2)
AWS Identity and Access
Management (IAM)
Amazon Relational Database
Service (RDS)
Amazon Simple Storage
Service (S3)
AWS CodePipeline
…
Windows Registry
Linux Networking
OpenSSH
LDAP
AD Domain Registration
Centralized logging
System Metrics
Deployment agents
Host monitoring
…
Application dependencies
Application configuration
Service registration
Management scripts
Database credentials
…

AWS CloudFormation
• Create templates that describe
and model AWS infrastructure
• CloudFormation then provisions
AWS resources based on
dependency needs
• Version control/replicate/update
the templates like app code
• Integrates with development,
CI/CD, management tools
• No additional charge to use

Benefits
Templated resource
provisioning
Infrastructure
as code
Declarative
and flexible
Easy to use

CloudFormation concepts and technology
JSON formatted file
Parameter definition
Resource creation
Configuration actions
Framework
Stack creation
Stack updates
Error detection and rollback
Configured AWS resources
Comprehensive service support
Service event aware
Customizable
Template CloudFormation Stack

Anatomy of a CloudFormation template: JSON
Plain Text
Perfect for version control
Can be validated

{
"AWSTemplateFormatVersion" : "2010-09-09",
"Description" : "AWS CloudFormation Sample Template
EC2InstanceSample: **WARNING** This template an Amazon EC2 instances.
You will be billed for the AWS resources used if you create a stack
from this template.",
"Parameters" : {
"KeyName" : {
"Description" : "Name of an existing EC2 KeyPair to enable SSH
access to the instance",
"Type" : "String"
},
"Environment": {
"Type" : "String",
"Default" : ”Dev",
"AllowedValues" : [”Mgmt", "Dev", ”Staging", "Prod"],
"Description" : "Environment that the instances will run in.”
}
},
"Mappings" : {
"RegionMap" : {
"us-east-1" : { "AMI" : "ami-7f418316" },
"us-west-2" : { "AMI" : "ami-16fd7026" }
}
},
"Conditions" : {
”EnableEBSOptimized" : {"Fn::Equals" : [{"Ref" : " Environment
"}, ”Prod"]},
},
"Resources" : {
"Ec2Instance" : {
"Type" : "AWS::EC2::Instance",
"Properties" : {
"KeyName" : { "Ref" : "KeyName" },
"EbsOptimized " : {"Fn::If": [ " EnableEBSOptimized ",
{“true”}, {“false”}]},
"ImageId" : { "Fn::FindInMap" : [ "RegionMap", { "Ref" :
"AWS::Region" }, "AMI" ]},
"UserData" : { "Fn::Base64" : "80" }
}
}
},
"Outputs" : {
"InstanceId" : {
"Description" : "InstanceId of the newly created EC2 instance",
"Value" : { "Ref" : "Ec2Instance" }
},
"PublicDNS" : {
"Description" : "Public DNSName of the newly created EC2
instance",
"Value" : { "Fn::GetAtt" : [ "Ec2Instance", "PublicDnsName" ] }
}
}
}

Parameters
"Parameters" : {
"KeyName" : {
"Description" : "Name of an existing EC2 KeyPair to enable
SSH access to the instance",
"Type" : "String"
},
"Environment": {
"Type" : "String",
"Default" : ”Dev",
"AllowedValues" : [”Mgmt", "Dev", ”Staging", "Prod"],
"Description" : "Environment that the instances will run
in.”
}
},
Mappings
"Mappings" : {
"RegionMap" : {
"us-east-1" : { "AMI" : "ami-7f418316" },
"us-west-2" : { "AMI" : "ami-16fd7026" }
}
},
Conditionals
"Conditions" : {
”EnableEBSOptimized" : {"Fn::Equals" : [{"Ref" : " Environment "}, ”Prod"]},
},
Resources
"Resources" : {
"Ec2Instance" : {
"Properties" : {
"EbsOptimized " : {"Fn::If": [ " EnableEBSOptimized ", {“true”}, {“false”}]},
"ImageId" : { "Fn::FindInMap" : [ "RegionMap", { "Ref" : "AWS::Region" },
"AMI" ]},
"UserData" : { "Fn::Base64" : "80" }
}
}
},
Outputs
Outputs" : {
"InstanceId" : {
"Description" : "InstanceId of the newly created EC2 instance",
"Value" : { "Ref" : "Ec2Instance" }
},
"PublicDNS" : {
"Description" : "Public DNSName of the newly created EC2 instance",
"Value" : { "Fn::GetAtt" : [ "Ec2Instance", "PublicDnsName" ] }
}
}
}
Headers
{
"AWSTemplateFormatVersion" : "2010-09-09",
"Description" : "AWS CloudFormation Sample Template
EC2InstanceSample: **WARNING** This template an Amazon EC2
instances. You will be billed for the AWS resources used if you
create a stack from this template.",

Description of what your stack does, contains, etc
Provision time values that add structured flexibility and customization
Pre-defined conditional case statements
Conditional values set via evaluations of passed references
AWS resource definitions
Resulting attributes of stack resource creation
Headers
Parameters
Mappings
Conditionals
Resources
Outputs
Template components

Bootstrapping applications & handling updates
"Resources" : {
"Ec2Instance" : {
"Properties" : {
"SecurityGroups" : [ { "Ref" : "InstanceSecurityGroup" } ],
"ImageId" : { "Fn::FindInMap" : [ "RegionMap", { "Ref" : "AWS::Region" }, "AMI" ]},
"UserData" : { "Fn::Base64" : { "Fn::Join" : ["",[
"#!/bin/bash -ex","n",
"yum -y install gcc-c++ make","n",
"yum -y install mysql-devel sqlite-devel","n",
"yum -y install ruby-rdoc rubygems ruby-mysql ruby-devel","n",
"gem install --no-ri --no-rdoc rails","n",
"gem install --no-ri --no-rdoc mysql","n",
"gem install --no-ri --no-rdoc sqlite3","n",
"rails new myapp","n",
"cd myapp","n",
"rails server -d","n"]]}}
}
}
Option 1: Use EC2 UserData, which is available as a property of
AWS::EC2::Instance resources

cfn-init
cfn-hup
Option 2: AWS CloudFormation
provides helper scripts for
deployment within your EC2
instances
Metadata Key —
AWS::CloudFormation::Init
Cfn-init reads this metadata key and
installs the packages listed in this key
(e.g., httpd, mysql, and php). Cfn-init
also retrieves and expands files listed
as sources.
Amazon EC2
AWS CloudFormation
cfn-signal
cfn-get-
metadata
Bootstrapping applications & handling updates

Manage a wide range of AWS services & resources
• Amazon EC2
• Amazon EC2 Container Service
• Amazon EC2 Container Registry
• Amazon EC2 Simple Systems Manager
• AWS Lambda (including event sources)
• AWS Elastic Beanstalk
• Auto Scaling (including Spot Fleet)
• Amazon VPC & Managed NAT Gateway
• Elastic Load Balancing
• Amazon Route 53
• Amazon CloudFront
• AWS WAF
• Amazon S3
• Amazon RDS
• Amazon Redshift
• Amazon DynamoDB
• Amazon ElastiCache
• Amazon RDS (including Aurora)
• Amazon Elastic MapReduce
• Amazon Elasticsearch Service
• AWS Data Pipeline
• Amazon IAM (including managed policies)
• Amazon Simple AD / Microsoft AD
• Amazon Kinesis
• Amazon SNS
• Amazon SQS
• AWS CloudTrail
• Amazon CloudWatch
• AWS Config
• AWS Key Management Service
• AWS OpsWorks
• AWS CodeDeploy
• AWS CodePipeline
• Amazon Workspaces
• Amazon GameLift
AWS resource support is always growing. See up to date list here.

Template File
Defining Stack
• The entire infrastructure can
be represented in an AWS
CloudFormation template.
Many stacks & environments from one template

Template File
Defining Stack
• Use the version control
system of your choice to
store and track changes to
this template
Git
Perforce
SVN
…

Template File
Defining Stack
• Use the version control
system of your choice to
store and track changes to
this template
• Build out multiple
environments, such as for
Development, Test,
Production and even DR
using the same template
Git
Perforce
SVN
…
Dev
Test
Prod

Infrastructure as Code with CloudFormation
Versioning
You track changes within your code
Do it with your infrastructure:
• What is changing?
• Who made that change?
• When was it made?
• Why was it made?(tied to ticket/bug/project systems?)

Testing your template:
• Validate via API/CLI
• $ aws cloudformation validate-template – confirm CF
syntax
• Use something like Jsonlint (http://jsonlint.com/) to find
JSON issues like missing commas, brackets
• Throw this into your testing/continuous integration pipelines
Testing your CloudFormation templates

Visualizing your CloudFormation templates
• AWS
CloudFormation
Designer
• Visualize template
resources
• Modify template with
drag-drop gestures
• Customize sample
templates

Deploying your CloudFormation templates
Deploy & update via console or API/command line
OR
• aws cloudformation create-stack --stack-name
myteststack --template-body
file:////home//local//test//sampletemplate.json --
parameters
ParameterKey=string,ParameterValue=string

But what do we do once your
resources are provisioned and
running?

Your infrastructure needs ongoing management
• Updates/patches?
• New software?
• New configurations?
• New code deploys?
• Pool specific changes?
• Environment specific changes?
• Run commands across all hosts?
• Be on top of all running resources?

Ongoing management requires proper tooling
Some common challenges:
• Changing a vhost configuration on every web server across
multiple environments (dev, stage, prod)
• Installing a package on certain hosts to test out newer versions
• Changing LDAP config on every running Amazon EC2 Linux host
when they are across 25 different CloudFormation templates

We need a tool to interact with
each host that we manage and
make it easier to configure
them

• Configuration management service
for automating operational tasks
using Chef
• Model, control and automate
applications of nearly any scale and
complexity
• Manage Linux and Windows
environments
• Supports both AWS and on-
premises servers
• Launched in 2013
AWS OpsWorks

AWS OpsWorks concepts
A stack represents
the cloud
infrastructure and
applications that
you want to manage
together.
A layer defines how
to setup and
configure a set of
instances and
related resources.
Decide how to
scale: manually,
with 24/7 instances,
or automatically,
with load-based or
time-based
instances.
Then deploy your
app to specific
instances and
customize the
deployment with
Chef recipes.

AWS OpsWorks concepts: instance lifecycle
Setup Configure Deploy Undeploy Shutdown
Agent on each instance understands a set
of commands that are triggered by
OpsWorks. The agent then runs Chef.

OpsWorks agent communication
1. Instance connects with OpsWorks
service to send keep alive heartbeat
and receive lifecycle events
2. OpsWorks sends lifecycle event with
pointer to configuration JSON
(metadata, recipes) in S3 bucket
3. Download configuration JSON
4. Pull cookbooks and other build assets
from your repo
5. Execute recipe
6. Upload Chef log
7. Report Chef run status
EC2
Instance
OpsWorks
Service
“Deploy App”
Your repo,
e.g. GitHub








How OpsWorks bootstraps EC2 instances
Instance is started with IAM role
• UserData passed with instance private key, OpsWorks public key
• Instance downloads and installs OpsWorks agent
Agent connects to instance service, gets run info
• Authenticate instance using instance’s IAM role
• Pick-up configuration JSON from the OpsWorks instance queue
• Decrypt & verify message, run Chef recipes
• Upload Chef log, return Chef run status
Agent polls instance service for more messages

AWS OpsWorks + Chef
OpsWorks uses Chef to configure the software on the
instance
OpsWorks provides many Chef Server functions to users.
• Associate cookbooks with instances
• Dynamic metadata that describes each registered node in the
infrastructure
Supports "Push" Command and Control Client Runs
Support for community cookbooks

Working with Chef and OpsWorks
Similar to CloudFormation templates and application code:
• Mixture of JSON and a Ruby DSL
• Tools exist to do linting and syntax checking
• Versioning
• Built in cookbook versioning
• Some manual/processes scripted abilities
• But still can use source control for versioning
• Use with continuous integration systems just like AWS
CloudFormation templates and the rest of your code

Automates code deployments to any instance
Handles the complexity of updating your
applications
Avoid downtime during application deployment
Deploy to Amazon EC2 or on-premise servers,
in any language and on any operating system
Integrates with 3rd party tools and AWS
services
AWS CodeDeploy

AWS CodeDeploy concepts
Application
Revision #1
Revision #2
Revision #3
What to deploy?
Revision #1
How to deploy?
Instance
Instance
Instance
Deployment Group
Auto-Scaling Group
Where to deploy?

version: 0.0
os: linux
files:
- source: /
destination: /var/www/html
• Send application files to one
directory and configuration files to
another
• Set specific permissions on specific
directories & files
• Remove/Add instance to ELB
• Install dependency packages
• Start Apache
• Confirm successful deploy
• More!
permissions:
- object: /var/www/html
pattern: “*.html”
owner: root
group: root
mode: 755
hooks:
ApplicationStop:
- location: scripts/deregister_from_elb.sh
BeforeInstall:
- location: scripts/install_dependencies.sh
ApplicationStart:
- location: scripts/start_httpd.sh
ValidateService:
- location: scripts/test_site.sh
- location: scripts/register_with_elb.sh
How It Works: Package app with Appspec.yml

How It Works: Specify targets
Group instances by:
• Auto Scaling Group
• Amazon EC2 Tag
• On-Premises Tag
Dev Deployment Group
AgentAgent Agent
Prod Deployment Group
AgentAgent Agent
AgentAgent Agent

How It Works: Deploy
• AWS CLI & SDKs
• AWS Console
• AWS CodePipeline & CI/CD Partners
• S3, GitHub
aws deploy create-deployment
--application-name MyApp
--deployment-group-name TargetGroup
--s3-location bucket=MyBucket,key=MyApp.zip

v2 v1 v1 v1 v1 v1 v1 v1
v2 v2 v1 v1 v1 v1 v1 v1
v2 v2 v2 v2 v1 v1 v1 v1
v2 v2 v2 v2 v2 v2 v2 v2
One-at-a-time
Min. healthy hosts = 99%
[Custom]
Half-at-a-time
All-at-once
Min. healthy hosts = 0
Choose your deployment configuration

Summary
• Create/update/manage AWS resources and their configuration and
properties with CloudFormation
• You can configure OpsWorks and CodeDeploy via
CloudFormation
• Use OpsWorks for ongoing tweaks to software/configuration of host
based applications and the operating system
• You can configure and deploy CodeDeploy’s agent with
OpsWorks
• Use CodeDeploy to deploy your applications and their configurations

Best practices
• Your CloudFormation templates and Chef cookbooks should
go in separate repositories
• Include appspec.yml file and related scripts in your
application’s code repositories
• Every commit should cause an execution of your continuous
delivery pipeline to lint, validate and/or test
• Use each related service’s CLI/console/APIs to update or
deploy as necessary

Learn More
• AWS CloudFormation
• https://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/
• https://aws.amazon.com/documentation/cloudformation/
• https://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/aws-cloudformation-templates/
• AWS OpsWorks
• https://aws.amazon.com/opsworks/
• https://aws.amazon.com/documentation/opsworks/
• https://github.com/aws/opsworks-cookbooks
• AWS CodeDeploy
• https://aws.amazon.com/codedeploy/
• https://aws.amazon.com/documentation/codedeploy/
• https://github.com/awslabs/aws-codedeploy-samples

Managing Your Infrastructure as Code by Travis Williams, Solutions Architect, AWS

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