| How anyone figured out AWS? |
[eluser]Davcon[/eluser]
Hi, I'm hoping to build a video streaming service using AWS. However, I haven't really got a clue where to start. One of the things that I'm finding very confusing is Amazon's massive list of services that are available over at AWS. Here is a list of the services currently on offer at AWS: Elastic Beanstalk Amazon S3 Amazon EC2 Amazon VPC Amazon CloudWatch Amazon Elastic MapReduce Amazon CloudFront AWS CloudFormation Amazon RDS Amazon ElastiCache Amazon SQS AWS IAM Amazon SNS Amazon SES Amazon Route 53 Amazon DynamoDB AWS Storage Gateway Has anyone managed to figure out what all of this means? The explanations I've read from Amazon are like hyroglifics. I'm stumped. All I'm trying to do is stream some videos. Surely that can't be too complicated.
[eluser]Rok Biderman[/eluser]
Just about the only thing you can do is to start small. Take only what you need and build upon it. For example, for dev purposes of running a streaming server, start at EC2 instances, pick the micro (free one), there will be loads of tuts on how to do it. Learning to configure and maintain a server is a chore and takes a lot of time, but it makes you a better man (I kept saying to myself). My personal coice, I take the Alestic.com Ubuntu server with EBS storage (non-ethereal) instead of default Amazon ones, it's like Debian for human beings. Next thing, videos take a lot of disk space and your EBS only holds a couple of gigs - enter S3, the storage. The usage is pretty simple, classes with some examples can be easily found. So now you want to send emails. You learn why you can't really configure a smtp server on your instance (they don't like it) and why your shared hosting smtp provider won't do it (they don't like it either). Enter SES, it's just a rest service (now even with smtp user accounts, so plain smtp sending). Not a lot of explanation needed here. Now you need a place to host your domain info (Route 53, ahem, though there are a other, IMO better, services). From there on, you just grow with the stuff you need. Don't worry about scaling your app until you hit production. If you're planning to make something with large traffic spikes (viral, wink wink), get help because it takes experience to do it right. By that time you should have learned enough to know when you need to get additional help or knowledge (load balancing, scaling/replication/consistency issues, puppet mastery...) and what you can do by yourself. I hope it gives you something to do for starters. You can PM me for contact info and we can talk if/when you run into gotchas.
[eluser]Glyn[/eluser]
I use AWS for my environments. If you are interested in playing with the DynamoDB (their NoSQL database solution) you can look at my blog http://glynrob.com/database/dynamodb-in-codeigniter/
[eluser]kanjimaster[/eluser]
As you're starting a new service, why bog yourself down building an infrastructure using tools about which you know very little? Your time would be better spent building your business until it takes off, then start investing in beefing up your infrastructure. For a ready-built streaming infrastructure you might want to consider Vimeo Pro. We find it a very cost effective alternative to a generic CDN for less than 250k views p.a. |
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