Amazon Web Services (AWS) Instance Setup

This section of the guide will cover:

• Creating the various EC2 instances needed for each component or combination of component.

Provisioning an Instance

Setup an EC2 instance for running various components. This only covers the various windows nodes that SimpleUAM currently supports and needs to be repeated for each node.

• Under the EC2 Console click "Launch an Instance".

  Creo License Server Minimum Requirements

  The license server is simple enough we only need a free tier windows instance.

  • Name: <instance.name>
  • Application and OS Images: Quick Start -> Windows
    • Microsoft Windows Server 2019 Base
  • Instance Type: t2.micro
    • 1x vCPU
    • 1gb Memory
  • Key Pair: <ec2-keypair.name>
  • Network Settings:
    • VPC: <aws-vpc.id>
    • Subnet: <aws-private-subnet.id>
    • Auto-assign Public IP: Disable
    • Firewall: Select existing security group
    • Common Security Groups: <aws-default-sg.id>
    • Advanced Network Configuration: None
  • Configure Storage: 1x 30gb gp2
  Worker Node Minimum Requirements

  The worker node needs an elastic graphics interface for Creo's UI to work.

  • Name: <instance.name>
  • Application and OS Images: Quick Start -> Windows
    • Microsoft Windows Server 2019 Base
  • Instance Type: t2.xlarge
    • 4x vCPU
    • 16gb Memory
  • Key Pair: <ec2-keypair.name>
  • Network Settings:
    • VPC: <aws-vpc.id>
    • Subnet: <aws-private-subnet.id>
    • Auto-assign Public IP: Disable
    • Firewall: Select existing security group
    • Common Security Groups: <aws-default-sg.id>
    • Advanced Network Configuration: None
  • Configure Storage: 1x 200gb gp2
  • Advanced Details:
    • Elastic GPU: eg1.medium
  Corpus DB Minimum Requirements

  Option 1: If you need a read-only corpus DB itermittently for generating a static corpus, we reccomend just running the stub DB on a worker temporarily.

  Option 2: If you need a corpus DB for an alternate analysis pipeline and are fine with a non-persistent corpus then use a stub DB on a worker.

  This eats about 4gb of memory so ensure that the worker has at least 12 gb if the stub server will be up permanently.

  Option 3: If you need a corpus that is persistent, shared between multiple workers, or needs to be performant then you should set up janus-graph on a linux machine.

  This is outside the scope of this guide and you should try to follow SWRI's instructions.

  Option 4: AWS's Neptune DB seems like a viable option, though the details are up to you to sort.

  Message Broker Minimum Requirements

  Option 1: If you want a non-backendless broker or one that's not wasting your money, set up a linux instance and skip to the section on message broker setup. I'm not sure what minimum requirements make sense.

  Option 2: If you want a backendless message broker for intermittent testing or development work then install it sidecar with a worker node.

  Option 3: If you want a backendless broker and are fine with lower performance the specifications for a worker node on a windows machine be fine.

  Option 4: An AmazonMQ node might work well, there are tentative instructions in the section on message broker setup.

  Option 5: An Amazon MemoryDB for Redis node might work well, there are tentative instructions in the section on message broker setup.

• Find the instance you just created with "Name" <instance.name>.

  • Save the "Instance ID" as: <instance.id>

Connect to an Instance

Use the remote desktop protocol to connect to the instance.

Get RDP Connection Information

• Select the instance on your EC2 Dashboard
• Hit the Connect Button
• Connect to Instance -> RDP Client
• Keep note of:
  • Private IP: <instance.ip>
  • Username: <instance.user>
  • RDP File:
    • Click "Download remote desktop file"
    • Save to <instance.rdp.file>
  • Password:
    • Click "Get Password"
    • Upload <ec2-keypair.pem>
    • Click "Decrypt Password"
    • Save to <instance.rdp.pass>

Connect Via RDP

• Make sure your local machine is connected to the VPN set up previously, otherwise none of the provided IPs will correctly resolve.
• Via Preferred RDP client (e.g. Remmina):
  • Import: <instance.rdp.file>
  • IP: <instance.ip>
  • Username: <instance.user>
  • Password: <instance.rdp.pass>

Mount Shared FSx Drive

The AWS specific instructions are largely the same as the standard windows NFS ones, but they need certain server features to be enabled first.

• Add NFS client: Instructions
• Setup The Automount of drive: Instructions
  • Open File Explorer and click "Network" and "Map Network Drive":
  • Drive: <aws-fsx.drive-letter> (e.g. "D:" or "F:")
  • Folder: \\<aws-fsx.ip>\fsx\
  • Reconnect At Login: Yes

Continue to General Setup...