2018-08-02

Setting up a simple AWS (Amazon Web Services) Web server

AWS is known as a top (or, currently, the top ?) Cloud computing provider.
The aim of this article is to set the buzzwords and overcomplexity aside, and see how to rent a simple, cheap server that runs permanently and use it as a Web server, for instance, a GNOGA server.
I show you the shortcuts that will save you dozens of hours browsing through the huge AWS Web site and documentation, plus tons of more or less relevent articles on Stack overflow or similar sites.

For your Web server, you need
  1. a server
  2. a Web address
Perhaps you already have a Web address (point 2), but otherwise, you gan get one from AWS.
When you register to AWS, the big shock is that you get a list of more than 100 services (list below) and are confronted to the AWS universe with hundreds of abbreviations and words with a special meaning - gosh!
Fortunately, I'm there to filter things for you. From those 100+ services, you actually need 2 (yes, TWO!).
  1. EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud), for the server
  2. Route 53 if you need a Web address
If you own already a Web domain, you can of course skip point 2. In that case you can have your Web server with only ONE service, EC2, that is, 1% of the list!
Once you are in EC2, the steps are relatively well explained by the AWS site.
  • You choose a server with its Operating System. That's called an instance.
  • You associate to that server a so-called Security Group, for defining which ports of that server are open to the outside world.
If you are using Route 53 for the Web address, the tricky part is to associate the Web address to the server. It is done from the Route 53 service. If you select "Hosted zones", associate the server's IPv4 address to your domain name, eventually with a prefix, and you're done.

You can witness an example of a GNOGA server hosted on AWS with the "Pasta!" game, here.



***
Here the full list of the 100+ AWS services, as of 2. Aug. 2018, it's growing! Titles are in French.
I put a (*) on those two which are used for the Pasta! game.

Calcul
EC2 *
Lightsail
Elastic Container Service
EKS
Lambda
Batch
Elastic Beanstalk

Stockage
S3
EFS
Glacier
Storage Gateway

Base de données
RDS
DynamoDB
ElastiCache
Neptune
Amazon Redshift

Migration
AWS Migration Hub
Application Discovery Service
Database Migration Service
Server Migration Service
Snowball

Mise en réseau et diffusion de contenu
VPC
CloudFront
Route 53 *
API Gateway
Direct Connect

Outils pour développeurs
CodeStar
CodeCommit
CodeBuild
CodeDeploy
CodePipeline
Cloud9
X-Ray

Outils de gestion
CloudWatch
AWS Auto Scaling
CloudFormation
CloudTrail
Config
OpsWorks
Service Catalog
Systems Manager
Trusted Advisor
Managed Services

Services multimédias
Elastic Transcoder
Kinesis Video Streams
MediaConvert
MediaLive
MediaPackage
MediaStore
MediaTailor

Apprentissage machine
Amazon SageMaker
Amazon Comprehend
AWS DeepLens
Amazon Lex
Machine Learning
Amazon Polly
Rekognition
Amazon Transcribe
Amazon Translate

Analyse
Athena
EMR
CloudSearch
Elasticsearch Service
Kinesis
QuickSight
Data Pipeline
AWS Glue

Sécurité, identité et conformité
IAM
Cognito
Secrets Manager
GuardDuty
Inspector
Amazon Macie
AWS Single Sign-On
Certificate Manager
CloudHSM
Directory Service
WAF
Artifact

Services mobiles
Mobile Hub
AWS AppSync
Device Farm
Mobile Analytics

Réalité augmentée (AR) et réalité virtuelle (VR)
Amazon Sumerian

Intégration des applications
Step Functions
Amazon MQ
Simple Notification Service
Simple Queue Service
SWF

Engagement des clients
Amazon Connect
Pinpoint
Simple Email Service

Productivité d'entreprise
Alexa for Business
Amazon Chime
WorkDocs
WorkMail

Streaming de bureau et d'application
WorkSpaces
AppStream 2.0

Internet des objets
IoT Core
IoT 1-Click
IoT Device Management
IoT Analytics
Greengrass
Amazon FreeRTOS
IoT Device Defender

Développement de jeux
Amazon GameLift

Gold pricing 2024-03-16

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