Great post Kevin. I second the wiki idea. It would be an immense help to newcomers especially as Scalr adds new feature into the future. For someone coming from the traditional rackmount server world, a little bit of documentation can go a long way to understanding the strengths and weaknesses of Amazon and Scalr.
On Apr 17, 12:59 pm, Kevin Baker <[email protected]> wrote: > Your right. There isn't a whole lot of documentation. There was some talk > about starting an independent documentation project, but that hasn't really > gotten off the ground. I think most of use have learned by doing. > * > This List* is actually a great resource. I think you'll find that you will > be able to find answers to most questions by posting or searching through > the list. > > I have to put an overview together for some guys at my work so I guess I'll > just share it here. Hopefully it can make it into some kind of getting > started guide at some point. > > Scalr Overview > > Scalr is composed of *Instances, Roles, Farms and Applications*. These are > used to manage an application under Amazon Web Services. > > A Scalr *Instance* is just an Amazon instance that is manage by the Scalr > management console. > > A Scalr *Role* is an Amazon AMI used as a template for various instances you > will have running in Scalr. Each role is generally designed to fill specific > requirements of your infrastructure. They are all based off of the Scalr > Base roles. There are Shared roles from Scalr, Custom roles that you make > and Community roles made/shared by other Scalr customers. If you want a > custom role, say a special application server, you need to start from one of > the base Scalr roles, customize it and then save it as a custom image using > Scalr. This is accomplished with the "sync to all feature" or new role > feature. > > A Scalr *Farm* is a group of instances, each a member of Scalr Roles. An > example would be three Roles, mysql, app, www. Each role might be set to > have at least two instances. This would mean that the farm has a minimum of > six servers. All the properties associated with scaling an application are > set with in the farm. > > A Scalr *Application* is basically a publicly available web address. I most > cases web applications and their infrastructure can be uniquely identified > by their web address, iewww.mydomain.comor mail.mydomain.com. Each > application points at a specific Scalr Farm. The farm handles the requests > to the application. > > It is important to note that Scalr also handles DNS. A domain name is > associated with an application. Scalr will update DNS entries for all > instances in a farm connected to the application. It also dynamically > updates host files information in each instance so that each instance is > aware of the other instances in a farm w/o having to check DNS. This > facilitates server to server communication. > > Scalr Super Simple Getting Started > > 1. Make a new Application. > 2. Choose create a new farm > 3. Choose a domain name for your application. I generally buy .info > versions of each of our domains. I let scalr manage these and CNAME our > primary to the application web address from our primary DNS servers. > 4. Choose roles for your farm. The cheapest way to mess around would be > to just grab an app server. If you want to see a whole farm grab a www, app > and mysql server. > 5. Choose a default front-end server. This is the role name of the > instances that will handle incoming traffic for your web address. In most > cases it is the www role, if you only have an app server it'd be the app > server. > 6. Finish and start your farm. > 7. You should now be able to go back and see the Scalr default webpage > from your application's web address. > 8. From here just play with settings > > Make A Custom Role > Most likely you will want to make custom roles for your application. To do > this you need to: > > 1. Start up a farm with the Scalr Shared roles > 2. Once it is started, log into any of the servers and make your > necessary changes. > 3. Go back to the Scalr console > 4. Navigate to the instance screen through the farm screen > 5. Click on the drop down next to the instance with the changes you want > to save > 6. Choose "sync to all", carefully read each screen that follows. Make > sure to change the name of the role to your custom role name. This will > save > this as a custom role and allow you to start up any number of instances > based on this custom role with your changes already intact. > > Resources > > - Google Code - Scalr is an open project. You can use either Scalr.net or > start up your own instance of the Scalr managment software on your own > server. The source code, wiki and lists can be accessed from Google Code > website.http://code.google.com/p/scalr/ > - Scalr Screencast - There is a Scalr screencast on Google website. It > has a pretty good video only overview It is a freestanding Flash Swf, so > will prob prompt you to download. Just right click and play with the Flash > Player. > -http://scalr.googlecode.com/files/scale.swf > - Scalr Discussion - Try searching through the list for answers before > posting.. there's a lot of information in there. > -http://groups.google.com/group/scalr-discuss > - Scalr FAQ - Pretty sparse, but does have some key answers > -https://scalr.net/faq.html > - Amazon AWS - Worth reading through all their docs too > -http://aws.amazon.com > > Hope this helps. > > Anyone else out there... please feel free to join this thread and beef this > up or correct it... it'd be great to get a solid getting started guide into > the "documentation project" or Wiki. > > -- Kevin Baker > > On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 8:01 AM, Fran_K <[email protected]> wrote: > > > We've been building an EC2 app and have just reached the point where > > we are concerned with how to scale it up and thought that we would try > > scalr. We signed up and I went to the app screen and was just > > mystified. The support link brought me here. Is there any > > documentation on how to set up an application? All I could find was > > the FAQ which was rather meager. Is there an article or web site I can > > use to get started? > > > TIA! > > > --fran --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "scalr-discuss" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/scalr-discuss?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
