Confused about hosting in amazon web services

Question

I would like to use amazon web services for my website. But I am very confused about aws. My website will enable users to write blogs, share pictures, videos, and music from soundcloud. And I am hoping for 20,000 users (fingers crossed!). These are the things that I am confused about:

1. What ec2 instance should I start with?

   I was thinking to go with c3.large instance, but I am not sure. Should I go with small instance first?

2. What storage should I use: Amazon S3 or Amazon EBS?

3. Could you please explain about Amazon RDS?

4. Should I use Elastic load balancing from the start?

5. Lastly, what are the other things I should keep in mind?

If it helps, I am using Django as the backend. Your help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Answer 1

It is very tough to predict the kind of back-end you would need without knowing the inside out of what you are building. Even after knowing all those, you will have to change things on the fly.

I would suggest you get started, then measure and improve on the fly. I can just give you some guiding points, though:

1. Try this service called Elastic Beanstalk with m1.small instance to start with. This comes with an ELB and I would suggest use it.
2. Store large files like video and sound on S3 (EBS is not for such needs)
3. Database - If you have rich query needs, then use RDS (otherwise consider DynamoDB - Dynamo is easy to manage and it gives infinite scale).

Another good resource for you is the AWS reference architecture case studies: Architecture Center : http://aws.amazon.com/architecture/

Answer 2

What ec2 instance should I start with?

Rule #1 about the cloud: Treat your instances as though they are disposable. Automate all of your deployments. This way, you can easily start small, then scale-up as you need to.

What storage should I use: Amazon S3 or Amazon EBS?

It depends entirely on what you're trying to do. S3 is cheaper, but requires network calls. EBS is more expensive, but can be mounted directly to your instance. Good for "hot" data.

Could you please explain about Amazon RDS?

SQL database in the cloud. Supports MySQL, Oracle, SQLServer and Postgres.

Should I use Elastic load balancing from the start?

Again, if you treat your instances as though they were disposable, and automate all of your deployments, then it doesn't matter. You can tear-down your infrastructure and rebuild it once you have a better idea of what your needs are.

Lastly, what are the other things I should keep in mind?

Rule #1 about the cloud: Treat your instances as though they are disposable. Automate all of your deployments.

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Sony Kadavan said:

Try this service called Elastic Beanstalk with m1.small instance to start with. This comes with an ELB and I would suggest use it.

Yes. This.