How to vertically scale an Amazon instance?

Yes.  This is an incredible feature of AWS and cloud virtualization.  Spinup a new larger instance than the one you are currently running.  Pause that instance and detach the root ebs volume from this server and discard.  Then stop your live instance, detach its root volume.  Note...

What is auto-scaling? How does it work?

Autoscaling is a feature of AWS which allows you to configure and automatically provision and spinup new instances without the need for your intervention.  You do this by setting thresholds and metrics to monitor.  When those thresholds are crossed a new instance of your choosing will be...

What automation tools can I use to spinup servers?

The most obvious way is to roll-your-own scripts, and use the AWS API tools.  Such scripts could be written in bash, perl or other language or your choice.  Next option is to use a configuration management and provisioning tool like puppet or better it’s successor Opscode Chef.  You...

TOP AWS Interview Questions

A must 300+ AWS Questions (objective) 1. Mention what is the relation between an instance and AMI? 2. Explain EC2 Generation Instances in AWS? 3. What are the security best practices for Amazon EC2? 4. Explain how the buffer is used in Amazon web services? 5. Explain Elastic Block Storage?  What type of performance can you expect?  How do you back it up?  How...

What is configuration management? Why would I want to use it with cloud provisioning of resources?

Configuration management has been around for a long time in web operations and systems administration.  Yet the cultural popularity of it has been limited.  Most systems administrators configure machines as software was developed before version control – that is manually making changes on...

Explain how you would simulate perimeter security using Amazon Web Services model?

Traditional perimeter security that we’re already familiar with using firewalls and so forth is not supported in the Amazon EC2 world.  AWS supports security groups.  One can create a security group for a jump box with ssh access – only port 22 open.  From there a webserver group and...