I was recently given the task to migrate a SharePoint environment to Amazon Web Services (AWS). With limited exposure to cloud computing, I was trying to figure out what shopping on Amazon had to do with moving a SharePoint environment. After a little bit of research, I learned about the cloud concept of an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and that Amazon has been offering IaaS since 2006 with the introduction of Amazon Web Services.

Note to the Reader

The scenario that this blog post is based on required the complete migration of all servers out of a datacenter into the cloud with no on-premise domain controller (like many of you might encounter). The approach describe in t post might not be the best cloud solution for your situation, be sure to do your homework before choosing a path to the cloud. There are other IaaS providers; or perhaps a Platform as a Service (PaaS) such as Microsoft Azure is more suited for your situation.

What is Amazon Web Services?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the simplest of terms is a complete datacenter in the cloud. Traditionally, when a business starts, IT assets are purchased, installed, and maintained at a physical location (on-premise). The amount equipment required to set up a datacenter might include routers, switches, cabling, servers, cooling, power, battery backup, monitors, and much more. AWS can provide virtual equivalents of these assets for a relatively small price, reducing the total cost of ownership for the consumer. If the business or idea does not work out, simply shut down the devices and/or cancel your account.

Key Terms

While many of us are might be familiar with the hardware required to set up a

• Elastic Computer Cloud (EC2) – EC2 is effectively your virtual server room, providing you access to other resources (ex. virtual machines, virtual private network, etc.)
• Amazon Machine Image (AMI) – AMI is Amazon’s version of a virtual machine; you may be familiar with virtual machines if you have worked with VMware Workstation, Oracle VirtualBox, etc.
• Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) – In the simplest of terms, a VPC is your virtual private network. If you have ever set up a home network, you probably know that all of the machines on your network have internal IP addresses (ex. 192.168.X.X or 10.0.X.X) and they all share a static IP to communicate with the rest of the Internet; this is your virtual private network.
• Simple Storage Service (S3) – S3 is a scalable storage solution that allows you to store and retrieve any amount of data anytime.
• Elastic Block Storage (EBS) – EBS allows you to create and store volumes (virtual hard drives) that can then be attached to AMI Instances.
• Elastic IP – Is an IP address that can be allocated from Amazon at any time for a cost. An elastic IP can then be associated to any Instance of an AMI for public access.

Setting up a SharePoint Environment

Creating a VPC

If you plan on having more than one server (such as a 3-tier SharePoint environment), the first thing that you will want to do is set up a VPC; so that you can add your instances to it when you create them.

1. Navigate to the VPC tab.
2. Click Create a VPC
3. Select the VPC that best fits your needs (VPC with a Single Public Subnet will be appropriate for most situations)
4. Click Continue
5. Edit your VPC IP CIDR Block and Public Subnet as needed (Defaults should be fine for most situations)
6. Click Create VPC

Creating Security Groups

There are a variety of ways that security groups can be set up. What I ended up doing was creating one for each server type: Domain Controller (dc-sg), Database (db-sg), and SharePoint (sp-sg). For the dc-sg, db-sg, and sp-sg, I opened all incoming traffic for the private subnet (10.0.0.0/16) and port 3389 from anywhere (0.0.0.0/0). For sp-sg, I also opened incoming port 80 traffic from anywhere (0.0.0.0/0).

To create a security group:

1. Navigate to the VPC tab
2. Click Security Groups
3. Click Create Security Group
4. Enter Name and Description
5. Select the VPC that you will adding your servers to
6. Click Yes, Create

Instances

With your virtual network out of the way, it is time to stand up some servers. Depending on the type of environment that you are standing up, the type of instance and AMI used can vary as well as the price.

Choosing an Instance Type

At the time of this writing, AWS offers 4 standard instances that should be considered:

View all Instance Types
View Instance Pricing

At the time of this writing, Microsoft minimum hardware requirements are as follows:

View Microsoft SharePoint 2010 minimum requirements

So what instance should you use? In my opinion, the answer is, like most answers in development, it depends. While AWS recommends Extra Large instances for all servers and High Memory Quadruple Extra Large (not listed) for the database server, this might necessarily be true for all situations. For example, if you were setting up a development environment, you could probably get away using all Small instances. If your SharePoint environment has relatively small usage, Large instances might work for you. Additionally, you need to consider licensing; for example, you could pay Amazon licensing for SQL Server by using one of their SQL AMIs or you could use a regular AMI and install SQL Server using your licensing. Take the time to know your environment; you might want to read the Amazon Web Services SharePoint whitepaper.

Creating Instances

Once you have decided the type of instance(s) that you plan to use:

1. Navigate to the EC2 tab
2. Click Instances
3. Click Launch Instance
4. Locate an AMI (ex. Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Base) and click Select
5. Select the Instance Type
6. Select the VPC tab and select the VPC that you created previously
7. Click continue
8. (Optional) Select Prevent against accidental termination (this will prevent you from accidently deleting your instance)
9. (Optional) Enter an IP Address (if you want your IP address to be in order like I do)
10. Click Continue
11. (Optional) Enter a Name (good way to know which server is which) (note: this is not the computer name, just a name within AWS)
12. Click Continue
13. Select or create a Key Pair (these are used to encrypt/decrypt the initial Windows administrator password) (make note of where you store your .pem file)
14. Select the Security Group that you created previously or create one if needed
15. Click Continue
16. Check everything and then click Launch

Connecting to an Instance

At this point, an Instance is created from the AMI and is started. Monitor the State and Status Checks and wait for them to both to be green (running and 2/2 checks passed). This can take several minutes, so be patient. Once ready, we can give the instance an Elastic IP Address.

1. Navigate to EC2
2. Click Elastic IPs
3. Click Allocate New Address
4. Select VPC
5. Click Yes, Allocate
6. Check the box next to the Elastic IP that was just created
7. Select Associate Address
8. Select the desired instance
9. Click Yes, Associate

Now that the instance has a public IP, we are ready to connect:

1. Navigate to EC2
2. Click Instances
3. Check the box next to the desired instance
4. Select the Instance Actions drop down list
5. Select Get Windows Admin Password
6. Open the .pem file that you downloaded when you created your key pair, copy ALL of its contents and paste it into the box labeled Private Key
7. Click Decrypt Password
8. Your password will be displayed (copy it, save it, memorize it….whichever you choose)
9. Select the Instance Actions drop down list
10. Click Connect
11. From here, you can either download the RDP file or set one up manually and connect to your instance

Making Software Available

Now that you have your instances available, you might be wondering how you are going to install software such as SQL Server and SharePoint; after all, there is no virtual DVD drive. Like most things in the computer world, there are many ways to anything; I tend to stick to what I consider to be simple. I simply created a semi large volume, attached it to an instance, and copied/pasted in RDP. Alternatively, you could download it from MSDN from the server, setup Internet Explorer Enhanced Security (IEEC), and so on. Either way, I believe that it is a good idea to have this software on a volume somewhere that can be used by all machines (either by file share or dismount/mount). To create a volume and mount it to an instance:

1. Navigate to EC2
2. Click on Volumes
3. Click Create Volume
4. Enter the Size
5. Select the Availability Zone that your instances reside in
6. Do not select a Snapshot
7. Click Yes, Create
8. Check the box next to the volume that was just created (it is most likely the only one with a State of available)
9. Select the …More drop down list
10. Click Attach Volume
11. Select the instance that you would live to attach it to
12. Enter xvdf for the Device
13. Click Yes, Attach
14. Connect to the Instance
15. In Windows, navigate to Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management
16. Locate the volume that you just attached (it should be Offline)
17. Right Click on the volume and select Online
18. You should now be able to use the drive

References

Amazon Web Services, LLC. (2012). About AWS. Retrieved May 22, 2012, from http://aws.amazon.com/what-is-aws/.

Amazon Web Services, LLC. (2012). Amazon EC2 Instance Types. Retrieved May 23, 2012, from http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/.

Cloudiquity. (2012). Difference between S3 and EBS. Retrieved May 23, 2012, from http://www.cloudiquity.com/2009/03/differences-between-s3-and-ebs/.

The post Setting up SharePoint 2010 in Amazon Web Services appeared first on Messor Solutions, LLC..