OpenSwan on AWS

A common use case for using a third party VPN solution such as OpenSwan is to connect two regions VPCs through the use of an IPSec VPN server.  

First, set up a VPC in both regions with, here is what I did:

Region 1 (US-West-2) - VPC 10.0.0.0/16 with private subnet 10.0.0.0/24

Region 2 (Australia)- VPC 172.0.0.0/16 with private subnet 172.0.0.0/24

==================================================================================================================

Configure the VPN server software for the EC2 instances - Region 1

==================================================================================================================

Step 1
------
sudo yum install openswan

Step 2
------
nano /etc/ipsec.conf

Step 3
------
sudo vi /etc/ipsec.d/vpc1-to-vpc2.conf

Step 4
------
conn vpc1-to-vpc2
 type=tunnel
 authby=secret
 left=%defaultroute
 leftid=<EIP1>
 leftnexthop=%defaultroute
 leftsubnet=<VPC1 CIDR>
 right=<EIP2>
 rightsubnet=<VPC2 CIDR>
 pfs=yes
 auto=start

Step 5
------
sudo vi /etc/ipsec.d/vpc1-to-vpc2.secrets

Step 6
------
<EIP1> <EIP2>: PSK "<TYPE A KEY HERE>"

==================================================================================================================

Configure the VPN server software for the EC2 instances - Region 2

==================================================================================================================

Step 7
------
sudo vi /etc/ipsec.d/vpc2-to-vpc1.conf

Step 8
------
conn vpc2-to-vpc1
 type=tunnel
 authby=secret
 left=%defaultroute
 leftid=<EIP2>
 leftnexthop=%defaultroute
 leftsubnet=<VPC2 CIDR>
 right=<EIP1>
 rightsubnet=<VPC1 CIDR>
 pfs=yes
 auto=start

Note the CIDR needs to include the block range. For example: 10.0.0.0/16

Step 9
------
sudo vi /etc/ipsec.d/vpc2-to-vpc1.secrets

Step 10
-------
<EIP2> <EIP1>: PSK "<TYPE THE SAME KEY FROM STEP 6 HERE>"

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Configuration in each region

==================================================================================================================

Step 11
-------
a-
sudo service ipsec start

b-
sudo chkconfig ipsec on

c-
sudo vi /etc/sysctl.conf

net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1

d-
sudo service network restart


==================================================================================================================

Test your connections

==================================================================================================================

Step 1 - Region 1
------
ping 172.0.0.50

Step 2 - Region 2

ping 10.0.0.50

AWS EBS Performance

Here is a very good presentation on Amazon EBS performance from reInvent in 2013:
http://www.slideshare.net/AmazonWebServices/ebs-webinarfinal

AWS SLAs

The AWS services that have SLAs and the SLAs themselves can be found here:

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/sla/

http://aws.amazon.com/route53/sla/

http://aws.amazon.com/rds/sla/

http://aws.amazon.com/s3/sla/

Oracle Database Huge Pages

Oracle DBAs will use Oracle Hug pages to increase Oracle database performance : http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/server.112/e10839/appi_vlm.htm#UNXAR394

The only requirement for huge-pages (2MB pages) is that you run a HVM instance. However, all the Oracle AMIs are PVM.

For now to use huge pages with Oracle on EC2,  the best option would be to go with SUSE HVM AMI and then install the Oracle Database on the EC2 instance. 

AWS NYC Summit

Join me at the AWS New York Summit on July 10
https://aws.amazon.com/aws-summit-2014/new-york/

I will be assisting with this Big Data technical boot camp the day before:
https://secure1.regsvc.com/registration/index.aspx?TYPE=E&ID=125&LC=&LC=WS_NYSummit2014_BootcampDetailPage&PIN=&REF=&dbGUID=B00572E7-DEE7-45C0-9422-D21532101A75

Migrating Enterprise Workloads to AWS

Here is a good session from CloudTP that goes into detail on migrating enterprise workloads to AWS:

https://www.slideshare.net/kacyclarke/applying-systems-thinking-to-aws-application-migration

MySQL horizontal scaling

ScaleBase is a distributed database built on MySQL and optimized for the cloud. It is a relational database cluster that dynamically optimizes workloads and availability by logically distributing data. ScaleBase automates the data lifecycle, including analysis, data migration and node rebalancing.  ScaleBase provides an easy to manage horizontally scalable database cluster built on MySQL that dynamically optimizes workloads across multiple instances.  is  based in Newton, MA. The AWS Marketplace offering can be found here:  https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B00K8B5BOG.  ScaleBase provides the scalability and availability benefits of NoSQL databases while using a relational database.