Deploy the Infrastructure

For many organizations, the data that they possess is one of the most valuable assets they have. Backing up data frequently is of vital importance for the long lasting success of any organization. However, a backup of data is only valuable if data can be recovered/restored from the backup. In the cloud, backing up data and testing the restore is easier compared to on-premises datacenters. Automating this process with appropriate notification systems will ensure that an organization’s data is backed up frequently, the backups are tested to ensure expected recovery, and appropriate people are notified in case of failures.

architecture

You will use AWS CloudFormation to provision some resources needed for this lab. As part of this lab, the CloudFormation stack that you provision will create an EC2 Instance, an SNS Topic, and a Lambda Function. You can view the CloudFormation template here for a complete list of all resources that are provisioned. This lab will only work in us-east-1.

1.1 Log into the AWS console

If you are attending an in-person workshop and were provided with an AWS account by the instructor:

Click here for instructions to access your assigned AWS account:

If you are using your own AWS account:

Click here for instructions to use your own AWS account:

1.2 Deploy the infrastructure using AWS CloudFormation

Click here to deploy the stack.

Under PARAMETERS:

  1. Select an AvailabilityZone to launch the resources in.
  2. For LatestAmiId leave the default value. This will automatically retrieve the latest AMI ID for Amazon Linux 2.
  3. Specify an email address that you have access to for NotificationEmail.

Check the box I acknowledge that AWS CloudFormation might create IAM resources.

Click CREATE / CREATE STACK.

MANUAL STEPS

  1. Use your administrator account to access the CloudFormation console - https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/.
  2. Click on CREATE STACK.
  3. Under PREREQUISITE - PREPARE TEMPLATE, select the option TEMPLATE IS READY.
  4. Under SPECIFY TEMPLATE, select the option AMAZON S3 URL, enter the link - https://aws-well-architected-labs-virginia.s3.amazonaws.com/Reliability/200_Testing_Backup_and_Restore_of_Data/backup-lab.yaml and click NEXT.
  5. Enter a STACK NAME such as WA-Backup-Lab.
  6. Select an AvailabilityZone to launch the resources in.
  7. For LatestAmiId leave the default value. This will automatically retrieve the latest AMI ID for Amazon Linux 2.
  8. For NotificationEmail, specify an email address that you have access to.
  9. Leave default values for the rest of the fields and click NEXT.
  10. No changes are needed on the CONFIGURE STACK OPTIONS page, click NEXT.
  11. Review the details of the stack, scroll down to CAPABILITIES, and check the box next to I acknowledge that AWS CloudFormation might create IAM resources.
  12. Click CREATE STACK.

Note: Once stack creation starts, monitor the email address you entered. You should receive an email from SNS with the subject AWS Notification - Subscription Confirmation. Click on the link Confirm subscription to confirm the subscription of your email to the SNS Topic.

The stack takes about 2 minutes to create all the resources. Periodically refresh the page until you see that the STACK STATUS is in CREATE_COMPLETE. Once the stack is in CREATE_COMPLETE, visit the OUTPUTS section for the stack and note down the KEY and VALUE for each of the outputs. This information will be used later in the lab.

You can view the simple application running on the instance by visiting the URL specified in the outputs. If you get an error that says “Connection refused”, wait a couple of minutes and try again.