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Ask HN: Setting up AWS cloud infrastructure too complicated?

by zaryaf on 11/18/14, 8:51 PM with 3 comments

As a front-end developer, I have more than enough tools and resources at my disposal to get started and complete my projects. The server setup is always a challenge, however. I recently discovered AWS CloudFormation templates but have found that I need a lot of upfront knowledge to get started. I would like to maintain control so Heroku and Parse are not good options. At the same time, I would like the process to setup and monitor my own infrastructure to be a lot easier. Any advice on what I can be doing to overcome these challenges? Am I alone or are do others face similar problems?

  • by freshflowers on 11/18/14, 9:23 PM

    If you really want to learn to do this stuff yourself, I would suggest starting simple. Take a configuration management tool (I would suggest Ansible, which is a lot easier to use than Puppet of Chef) and an EC2 instance. Create, configure, terminate, rinse and repeat.

    The simple fact that you can pretty much screw up everything you like, throw the whole system away and start again where you left off in a matter of minutes helps increase confidence and speed up learning, plus the configuration gives you a 100% accurate documentation of what you actually did.

    But just like development, it's easy to get started but it takes years to master it.

  • by kjksf on 11/18/14, 9:18 PM

    "Server setup" is a bit vague.

    You should start with something less ambitious and less complicated, like running your code on a single machine from e.g. Digital Ocean or linode. Managing a single machine setup is much easier than doing AWS and almost everything you learn will also apply to AWS setup.

    AWS is appropriate for large deployments, where your service outgrows the capabilities of a single machine.

    I run 2 websites on a single Digital Ocean $10/month server and there's plenty of room for more.

  • by PaulHoule on 11/18/14, 9:19 PM

    1. As krs1 put it, you must learn. If you look at other IAAS vendors there is a lot to learn 2. Devops revolution. Write scripts.