[Opensim-users] using AWS for opensim

[Dave Coyle]

On Feb 18, 2012, at 7:09 PM, Ken Grunke wrote:
> I have become aware that running OpenSim solely within an EC2 Linux or Windows instance is not taking advantage of all that AWS has to offer, but haven't much of a clue what, of the various services in regards to OS to use, or how. 
> 
> <...>
> 
> To what uses could an Elastic Load Balancer, Elastic Block Storage, or S3 standard storage features be put? 
> Could I use a MySQL database outside of the instance, for example?


Depends on what you're looking to do.  An EBS-backed EC2 instance gets you the ability to shut your EC2 instance down when you're not using it, pay only the EBS per-GB fees for your disk image while it's shut down, and fire it back up when you desire.  EBS volumes are also easy to snapshot for backups.  If you're looking to set up a sim that only runs part time this could be a good fit.

If you're looking to run your own grid then EBS and, with some work, S3 give you the ability to grow your storage needs for assets, etc., as you need them.  If you're running the ROBUST grid services you can run multiple instances of, say, the inventory service and stick them behind ELB.  You could also use Amazon's RDS (hosted MySQL instances) if it satisfied a need, but i/o performance isn't always great so depending on your needs you might be better served by running on a dedicated server somewhere.

-coyled