Whether you are launching a simple website or a scaled application, time to go live is a key consideration for your business. Amazon Lightsail is the easiest way to get started on AWS, letting you build and scale your infrastructure faster. In this session, we will walk you through how to use Lightsail to launch your application with a few clicks and scale it as needed for redundancy, traffic spikes, or intergalactic attack. With in-browser SSH and RDP access, easy server management, and in-console guidance, Lightsail provides all the tools needed for builders of all levels – no prior AWS experience required.

1. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved
Amazon Lightsail
Deploying and scaling a Node.js app on Lightsail
Mike Coleman, Developer Advocate
@mikegcoleman

2. Who am I
• Developer Advocate for Amazon Lightsail
• But, I’m not a developer
• Based out of Portland, Oregon
• Previous: Docker, Puppet (Labs), VMware, Microsoft,
Intel, HP(E)
• @mikegcoleman (but I tweet about soccer, a lot)

3. What you will learn
After today you will be understand how to:
• Launch an application on Lightsail
• Break out app components
• Scale an application using load balancer
• Get started with containers (bonus)

4. Introduction to Amazon Lightsail

5. What do you want to run in the cloud?
Websites Apps eCommerce
Dev/Test Environments WordPress Simple Software

6. What you need to set up an instance in AWS:
Launch
VM
Attach
SSD storage
Manage
IAM
Create
Security Groups
Manage
SSH Keys
Go!
Under the hood

7. Amazon Lightsail: Cloud made easy
• Bundled compute, storage, networking
• Fully configured server
• Low, predictable price
• Intuitive, global Lightsail console
• Easy growth path
• Access to AWS services
• Tailored API & CLI

8. What do Lightsail plans include?
CPU core(s) SSD block storage Networking, data transfer,
and Load Balancing
DNS management 1 Static IP/instance Access to AWS
services

9. Predictable pricing starting at $5 per month

10. Launch a virtual server in < 1 minute

11. Global resource view

12. Simple server management

13. One-click terminal access

14. Jumpstart or Build Your Own with Blueprints
Preconfigured Applications
and Dev Stacks
Operating System Only

15. Latest Features
10
global regions
8
languages
Windows
Server
Additional
block storage
Load
Balancers

16. When to choose Lightsail?
• Small-scale multi-tier apps
• Websites
• Web apps
• Testing environment
• Line-of-business software
• Large, multi-tier applications
(several dozens of instances)
• Anything requiring instances that
are workload optimized, highly
configurable, or resource
intensive
• E.g., Big data analytics, High performance
computing, Scientific computing
• Advanced networking

17. Demo
Lightsail Overview

18. Common Application Architectures
Single-Tier /
Monolithic
Multi-Tier Traditional Multi-Tier Cloud-native
Image Credit: Bitnami (https://bitnami.com/aws)

19. Common Application Architectures
Single-Tier /
Monolithic
Multi-Tier Traditional Multi-Tier Cloud-native
Image Credit: Bitnami (https://bitnami.com/aws)
Today’s Focus

20. Node / Express Web Front End
MongoDB back end
Phase 1:
• Deploy monolithic app into Lightsail
MEAN blueprint
Phase 2:
• Separate front end from Database
• Scale front end
• Deploy a Lightsail load balancer
The Application: Simple Todo List

21. Lightsail MEAN blueprint
• MEAN – Mongo, Express, Angular, Node
• Preconfigured Bitnami image includes
• MongoDB
• Node.JS
• Express
• AngularJS
• Apache
• Git
• PHP
• RockMongo

22. Getting our Application Running
• Create Lightsail instance
• Disable Apache
• Create user account in Mongo
• Clone Github repo
• Configure application environment variables
• Run the app

23. Application Architecture – Version 1
Node / Express Application
MongoDB
(mongodb://localhost:27017)
Single Lightsail Instance
http traffic
Customer

24. Demo
Monolithic Node App

25. Refining our application
Potential issues:
• Single point of failure
• Responding to increasing demand
• Database / web front end tied closely together
Solution:
• Separate database / web front end
• Created multiple front end instances
• Add a Lightsail load balancer

26. Lightsail load balancers
• Simplified Amazon load
balancer implementation
• Set up in a few clicks
• Handles http / https traffic
• Balances across ports 80
and 443

27. Application Architecture – Version 1
Node App
MongoDB
Single Lightsail Instance
http
Customer

28. What You Won’t See Me Do
•Deployed two OS only instances
•Installed and configured Mongo in one
instance
•Installed and configured application in the
other

29. Application Architecture – Version 2a
Node App
http
MongoDB
Customer

30. Scaling the front end
• Front end is stateless
• Create Lightsail snapshot
• Deploy multiple instances from snapshot
• Create Lightsail load balancer
• And front-end instances to Load balancer

31. Application Architecture – Version 2b
Node
App
http
Customer MongoDBLoadBalancer
Node
App
Node
App

32. Demo
Scaling the front end

33. Containers are the new(ish) hotness
• Greatly simplify developing and deploying
applications
• AWS has several great container offerings
• ECS
• EKS
• Fargate
• Getting started can be intimidating
• You don’t need an orchestrator on day one

34. Docker containers on Lightsail
Easy to get started
• Build your container image
• Use an OS only blueprint
• Install Docker and Docker Compose
• Copy over a Docker compose file
• docker compose up -d
• Profit
When you’re ready look at EKS/ECS/Fargate

35. Demo
Running the app with
containers

36. Thanks!
Github.com/mikegcoleman/todo