Oracle on AWS white papers

Some great new Oracle on AWS white papers:

      Best Practices for running Oracle Database on Amazon Web Services
http://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/best-practices-for-running-oracle-database-on-aws.pdf
Advanced Architectures for Oracle Database on Amazon EC2
http://d3ulk6ur3a3ha.cloudfront.net/enterprise-marketing/Oracle/AWSAdvancedArchitecturesforOracleDBonEC2.pdf
Strategies for Migrating Oracle Database to AWS
http://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/strategies-for-migrating-oracle-database-to-aws.pdf
Determining the IOPS Needs for Oracle Database on AWS
http://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/determining-iops-needs-for-oracle-database-on-aws.pdf
Choosing the Operating System for Oracle Workloads on Amazon EC2
http://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/choosing-os-for-oracle-workloads-on-ec2.pdf

AWS EC2 instances and 32 bit

Some legacy applications including pre 11 Oracle COTS software only run on 32 bit.  Keep this in mind when moving a 32 bit based application to EC2:   These are the instance types that support 32 bit:

1. m1.small : Memory 1.7 GB CPU : 1
2. m1.medium : Memory 3.75 CPU : 2
3. c1.medium : Memory 1.7 GB CPU : 5 ECU
4. t1.micro : Memory .615 GB CPU: 1 ECU variable

 ON Windows,  WoW64 on Windows Server x64 can be used to run a 32 bit application.

Moving EBS volumes between Linux and Windows

EBS volumes are portable between instances running different operating systems but this does not mean the underlying file system format will be compatible.  EBS is a block level storage device.  The volume must be formatted with a file system which may or may not run across different EC2 instances based upon the OS of the instance.

Moving between Linux and Windows file formatted EBS formatted volumes were most of the compatible issues may arise. NTFS and EXT4 are some of the most common file system formats.  

An option is to used NTFS as your 'master' file system.  Then use a utility like ntfsprogs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntfsprogson) to use the EBS volume for both Windows and Linux instances. If you don't need writing on Linux, you can mount the NTFS drive and read it on Linux . Linux can natively read NTFS but it can not write to NTFS drives natively.  

The other option is to use EXT4 (or another Linux file system) as your 'master' file system. For example, EXT4 is not natively supported on Windows.  Good discussion here:

http://superuser.com/questions/465393/how-to-mount-read-write-an-ext4-parti

tion-on-windows-solution-back-to-ntfs

Also, ext2fsd  (http://www.ext2fsd.com)  a proven solution for reading EXT4 from Linux.  For those that don't need NTFS, sharing filesystems between Windows and Linux can be done using exFAT. Another potential solution that supports reading and writing to NTFS on Linux is: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ntfs-3g/

Quickbooks on AWS

Running Quickbooks on AWS/EC2 is easy. It is also easy to migrate your data from on premise and online Quickbooks.

Some information on running Quickbooks on AWS/EC2 here:
https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?messageID=364272

Next step is to create an EC2 instance:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/WindowsGuide/EC2Win_GetStarted.html

You will be running Quickbooks on an AWS EC2 Windows instance and then be using RDP (Microsoft Remote Desktop) to access your AWS online Quickbooks application:
Details on accessing Windows EC2 instances here: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/LaunchingAndUsingInstancesWindows.html

1. Migrating data from on premise Quickbooks to AWS:

Transfer Files to Windows Server Instances from Windows

You can work with your instance the same way you would work with any Windows server. For example, you can transfer files between an Amazon EC2 Windows instance and your local Windows computer using the local file sharing feature of Windows Remote Desktop. If you enable this option in your Windows Remote Desktop Connection software, you can access your local files from your Amazon EC2 Windows instances. You can access local files on hard disk drives, DVD drives, portable media drives, and mapped network drives. For information about this feature, go to the Microsoft Support website or go toThe most useful feature of Remote Desktop I never knew about on the MSDN Blogs website.

2. Migrating data from Quickbooks online edition:
http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/articles/HOW12246

You will most likely need more Windows and Quickbooks licenses:

1. By default, can have two concurrent RDP users on Windows. Can connect more then two users but need to change licensing….

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverTS/thread/8987ad6d-5d19-44a9-8835-16208127fdd5/

2. Quickbooks licensing information can be found here:

http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/articles/INF12724