AWS System Administration Best Practices for Sysadmins in the Amazon Cloud

After getting over the excitement of the scaling and cost-saving possibilities offered by Amazon Web Services, system administrators quickly come up against complexities and gotchas in the management of systems. How can they make sure auto-scaling kicks in when it is suppose to? How do they make sure DNS sends traffic to the right systems? How do they integrate automated management tools such as Chef and Puppet?

This book is a comprehensive guide to the administrative features of AWS and how to make the most of them to minimize your administrative work. You’ll learn how to configure and manage powerful AWS tools, such as CloudFormation, OpsWorks, Elastic Load Balancing, and Route 53. AWS administration is no easier than stand-alone server administration—it's just different, and very rewarding once you set up your automation right. This book shows you how.

Topics include:

• CloudFormation
• Access Management and Security Groups
• Auto Scaling and Elastic Load Balancing
• Opworks
• Building Reusable Components
• Log Management
• DNS with Route53
• Monitoring
• Backups

1. Setting Up AWS Tools
2. First Steps With EC2 and CloudFormation
3. Access Management and Security Groups
4. Configuration Management
5. An Example Application Stack
6. Auto Scaling and Elastic Load Balancing
7. Deployment Strategies
8. Building Reusable Components
9. Log Management
10. DNS with Route53
11. Monitoring
12. Backups