Migrating Magento to AWS

[SamStones]

Hi All,

We currently run Magento on a dedicated server. We've had the server 2 years now, and it costs us £163 + VAT / month. As it's 2 years old, it's time to move on to get our costs down and probably get our speeds up.

Instead of upgrading to another dedicated server, I'm wondering about moving to Amazon AWS which would give us more flexibility in terms of resources (seasonal business with differing requirements at different times of the year).

The dedicated server we use currently runs Linux and cPanel, and hosts a dozen or so smaller websites aside from our main Magento store. I've used cPanel for 14 years, and never really used much else so I'm very familiar with it and would like to keep it if possible?

I'm not at all familiar with AWS.

What I'd like to know is:
How practical is it to run Magento on AWS?
Is there an easy way to work out the potential costs?
Can we still get cpanel on it?
If not cpanel, how do we administer things such as new accounts, email addresses, mysql databases etc?
Has anyone here got Magento running on AWS already?

Any pointers in the right direction for some assistance in getting this set up and migrated would be welcome.

TIA

 

[ldjames]

This is precisely the sort of work we undertake so feel free to get in touch for any advice or for a quote. We are in the process of moving a very large Magento store to AWS right now

How practical is it to run Magento on AWS?
AWS is an umbrella term for a lot of different services. EC2 comprises of servers that are probably very similar to your existing server so, if you only use EC2, Magento will probably run with a similar level of reliability. Performance could improve or degrade depending on the specs of the server you have now and which EC2 instance type you get.

However, the key advantage of AWS in my view, is that the other services can be used together with EC2 to create a very reliable and efficient hosting environment - for anything - even Magento. Adding RDS and ELB will improve reliability considerably over a single server - EC2 or dedicated. Other services such as SQS and SES can also help.

Is it practical? Sure. If reliability is your priority then it's a great choice.

Depending on how technical you are and on the size of the store, it could be worth engaging a company to set up and maintain AWS. We do this. Others do it too. It needn't be expensive and the cost of this plus AWS may be on par with your existing hosting.

Is there an easy way to work out the potential costs?
It's not easy to be accurate with AWS costs - and it depends on which services you want to use. If you have some traffic stats, post them here or shoot me an email and I'll do my best.

Can we still get cpanel on it?
Yes (on EC2) but in my view, it would defeat the point of moving to AWS since cPanel is not really designed for multi-server deployments. You could get a single EC2 instance and put cPanel on it but the benefits of moving would be limited.

If not cpanel, how do we administer things such as new accounts, email addresses, mysql databases etc?
Email addresses would likely be separated. AWS have "Workmail" or you could use some other external email service - or a small separate EC2 server with a free email package on it. There would be a small extra cost but it's easy to manage.

Databases and other website-related things: this is a technical task. If you know your way around Linux, then you could attempt it yourself. If you have a developer, they may be able to help, depending on their experience. If not, you could look for external server management / AWS management to help.

Has anyone here got Magento running on AWS already?
Yes

 

[Jolt.co.uk]

Hi All,

We currently run Magento on a dedicated server. We've had the server 2 years now, and it costs us £163 + VAT / month. As it's 2 years old, it's time to move on to get our costs down and probably get our speeds up.

Instead of upgrading to another dedicated server, I'm wondering about moving to Amazon AWS which would give us more flexibility in terms of resources (seasonal business with differing requirements at different times of the year).

The dedicated server we use currently runs Linux and cPanel, and hosts a dozen or so smaller websites aside from our main Magento store. I've used cPanel for 14 years, and never really used much else so I'm very familiar with it and would like to keep it if possible?

I'm not at all familiar with AWS.

What I'd like to know is:
How practical is it to run Magento on AWS?
Is there an easy way to work out the potential costs?
Can we still get cpanel on it?
If not cpanel, how do we administer things such as new accounts, email addresses, mysql databases etc?
Has anyone here got Magento running on AWS already?

Any pointers in the right direction for some assistance in getting this set up and migrated would be welcome.

TIA

What spec is your server? What resources do you need?

AWS can work out well if you know what you're doing. But given the expensive resources, the cost of consultancy/professionals to set it up (and also manage it ongoing), I'm not really sure you'll save money.

 

[SamStones]

Thanks for the replies so far, our current spec is:

Server Dedicated Server CS5.5
Processor 8 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1230 V2 @ 3.30GHz
Memory 8,192MB DDR3 Upgrade
Disk 180GB SATA SSD
180GB SATA SSD
180GB SATA SSD
180GB SATA SSD
Network Interface Card 1 x 100Mbps
Operating System centos6

cpanel installed

Not sure how much of this spec we actually use currently.

 

[Jolt.co.uk]

Thanks for the replies so far, our current spec is:

Server Dedicated Server CS5.5
Processor 8 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1230 V2 @ 3.30GHz
Memory 8,192MB DDR3 Upgrade
Disk 180GB SATA SSD
180GB SATA SSD
180GB SATA SSD
180GB SATA SSD
Network Interface Card 1 x 100Mbps
Operating System centos6

cpanel installed

Not sure how much of this spec we actually use currently.

I have a few observations:

1) Overall, reasonable spec. If the site is slow I'd expect a lot of work to be done in optimising Apache, PHP, MySQL and just plain knowing Magento. We've done it for a lot of our clients, and partners (web developers etc). Its knowledge you build through the expertise, running it day in, day out.

2) SATA SSD doesn't exist. Sounds more like a marketing gimmick. Are the drives in RAID10? That will give a performance boost if so. SSD is definitely the way forward for busier Magento sites with heavy database transactions

3) 8GB of RAM is probably a little low. Anything like Magento loves as much memory as it can get, so I'd say 16GB currently or more, depending on size/performance

4) CPU is a few years old but nothing terrible.

I wouldn't expect an immediate performance boost JUST from moving to AWS. AWS is great for the right use case but this can add complexity. I also wouldn't expect a decrease in costs just from moving either.

HTH

Matt

 

[SamStones]

Hello,

Thanks for the reply.

1) The site isn't slow, but I wouldn't say it was lightening fast. We have had professional optimization work done in the past, but it could well need reviewing.

2) I believe they're SSD, or certainly that's what I was under the impression they were? They are RAID 10 as far as I'm aware.

3) noted, thanks

4) noted, thanks

I don't have a major issue with the performance currently, but I would like the scalability for the busy periods, and I was hoping that a move would reduce costs a little - with the current pricing being based on the cost from 2+ years ago . Looking on the same providers website that I already use, it looks like the same spec comes out at a similar cost today to what I'm already paying.

I can't make any sense of the costs on Amazon EC2!

 

[Jolt.co.uk]

Hello,

Thanks for the reply.

1) The site isn't slow, but I wouldn't say it was lightening fast. We have had professional optimization work done in the past, but it could well need reviewing.

2) I believe they're SSD, or certainly that's what I was under the impression they were? They are RAID 10 as far as I'm aware.

3) noted, thanks

4) noted, thanks

I don't have a major issue with the performance currently, but I would like the scalability for the busy periods, and I was hoping that a move would reduce costs a little - with the current pricing being based on the cost from 2+ years ago . Looking on the same providers website that I already use, it looks like the same spec comes out at a similar cost today to what I'm already paying.

I can't make any sense of the costs on Amazon EC2!

1) First port of call is optimise the software stack. Your web developers, or a competent host, can do this.

2) They are either SATA or SSD. What does WHM tell you about the model name?

You can get decent spec for your budget for under £200/month - faster hardware, more performance, more Magento expertise just by shopping around.

 

[edmondscommerce]

Have you actually investigated what AWS is going to cost you to maintain a similar spec?

With your current hosting, what kind of support do you have?

I wouldn't just jump into AWS without thinking about it properly. It is a great platform if you know how to work with it and have support, but if your primary motivation is to save costs from £160 month downwards then I suspect you might be disappointed.

 

[RichardfromOquile]

AWS (or any cloud host) is not necessarily cheaper than a dedicated server. Before planning things out use your current usage stats and calculate the AWS costs. They have their own cost calculator and you will be able to gather then info from your current server.

How do your site visitors behave? Are they logged in? Do you have a lot of anonymous customers? Do you have landing pages which are used by a high % of visitors? It might be worth adding (almost) static fast loading pages to greet your visitors, maybe using a reverse proxy like Varnish or Fastly.

 

[Raw Rob]

2) SATA SSD doesn't exist.

I'm fairly certain the drive in my laptop is a SATA III SSD, just like the drives for sale here. SATA is the interface type, SSD is the drive technology.

 

[sabian1982]

I'm in the process of testing out DigitalOcean - good pricing and scaliable; only downside thus far is the obvious lack of cpanel/plesk however you can obviously install this yourself but there is the associated monthly cost. Possibly worth a look as an alternative to AWS/CloudFlare etc.

 

[SamStones]

Thanks for the replies guys, I wanted to know if it was practical to run magento on AWS and how to calculate the costs etc . I think for the time being I'm probably best keeping with a dedicated server and get a Magento expert to take a look around and see what they can do to tidy things up a bit.