{"id":37364,"date":"2017-09-18T00:33:49","date_gmt":"2017-09-18T00:33:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/?p=37364"},"modified":"2024-05-21T16:55:27","modified_gmt":"2024-05-21T11:25:27","slug":"opswork-deployment-in-aws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/blog\/opswork-deployment-in-aws\/","title":{"rendered":"Opswork Deployment in AWS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opswork is a service that allows one to define and deploy a stack of components. Opswork is designed to work with the Configuration Management tool, Chef. Some of the key features of the Opswork service are<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Ability to automate the deployment of software packages on operating systems.<\/li>\n
  2. Ability to control deployments and carry out Blue-Green Deployments<\/a> if required.<\/li>\n
  3. Integration with both Chef 11 and 12.<\/li>\n
  4. Ability to have a database layer and an Elastic Load balancer attached to the stack<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This topic addresses the Continuous Delivery and Process Automation topic as highlighted in the AWS Blueprint<\/a> for the exam guide.<\/p>\n

    \"AWS<\/a><\/p>\n

    How does the OpsWork Stack look like?<\/b><\/h2>\n

    The below diagram from AWS shows the basic structure of the Opswork stack<\/p>\n

    \"Opswork<\/p>\n

    1) First is the definition of the stack itself. You could have stacks for different purposes. For example, you could have stacks for your staging environment, have a separate one for your production environment etc.<\/p>\n

    2) Once you define the stack, the next step is to add the layers. You can have multiple layers. For example, you have one layer which represents the Operating System layer and another layer which represents the Web server layer.<\/p>\n

    3) Next, you will define and deploy the apps onto your Opswork stack<\/p>\n

    4) And finally, you will manage your Opswork stack which includes adding new layers or modifying the components in the existing layers.<\/p>\n

    Implementing OpsWork Stacks<\/b><\/h2>\n

    Now let\u2019s have a closer look at how we can work with Opswork stacks. In the below example, we will create an Opswork stack using Chef11. We will use the built-in recipe\u2019s available with the AWS Opswork service. We will choose to have nginx installed as a web server on the underlying instances created with Opswork. And finally, we will deploy a simple HTML (Demo.html) page to the underlying instances. Here we are assuming that there is a public GitHub repository in place which has the uploaded code.<\/p>\n

    Step 1)<\/strong> Log into your AWS Console. Go to the Management Tools->OpsWorks section<\/p>\n

    \"opsworks<\/p>\n

    Step 2)<\/strong> The first step is to create a stack, hence in the next screen, click on \u201cAdd your first stack\u201d<\/p>\n

    \"opswork<\/p>\n

    Step 3)<\/strong> In the next screen, choose a Chef 11 stack.<\/p>\n

    \"Sample<\/p>\n

    Step 4)<\/strong> Choose the operating system, remember that you can just have one type of OS for a stack. You cannot mix and match operating systems. For now, let\u2019s leave the custom Chef cookbooks as \u2018No\u2019. We can also edit this setting once the stack is created.<\/p>\n

    \"Demostack<\/p>\n

    Step 5)<\/strong> Leave the rest of the settings as they are and continue to create your stack.<\/p>\n

    \"Opswork<\/p>\n

    Step 6)<\/strong> Once the stack is created, next click on the Layers section.<\/p>\n

    \"Opswork<\/p>\n

    Step 7)<\/strong> In the Layers section, click on Add Layer.<\/p>\n

    \"Opswork\"<\/p>\n

    Step 8)<\/strong> In the next screen, you can choose the Layer type. In this example, we are choosing the static web server which will install the nginx web server. You also need to attach an Elastic Load Balancer to your stack. Note that the instances which are currently mapped to the ELB will be removed. In the below snapshot, a load balancer has already been created from before.<\/p>\n

    \"nginx<\/p>\n

    Once the layer is created, you can view the settings of the Layer<\/p>\n

    a) The Recipes section will show you the built-in recipes for your stack. If you want to use your own recipes then you need to use your own cookbooks and change the layer settings accordingly.<\/p>\n

    \"Opswork<\/p>\n

    b) You can also choose the install custom packages based on the OS in the OS packages section.<\/p>\n

    \"OS<\/p>\n

    c) The network section is shown below. This is where you can decide on the ELB to use and whether to have Public and Elastic IP addresses.<\/p>\n

    \"Opswork\"<\/p>\n

    d) The EBS Volumes are shown as below<\/p>\n

    \"EBS<\/p>\n

    e) In the General section, you have the Auto healing feature. Every instance has an AWS OpsWorks Stacks agent that communicates regularly with the service. AWS OpsWorks Stacks uses that communication to monitor instance health. If an agent does not communicate with the service for more than approximately five minutes, AWS OpsWorks Stacks considers the instance to have failed.<\/p>\n

    \"Layer<\/p>\n

    Step 9)<\/strong> Once the Layer is added, click the \u2018Add instance\u2019 to add an instance to the layer.<\/p>\n

    \"Opswork<\/p>\n

    Step 10)<\/strong> When adding an instance, choose the Instance type and then click on \u201cAdd Instance\u201d<\/p>\n

    \"Existing<\/p>\n

    Step 11)<\/strong> Once the Instance is added, click on the start button to start the instance.<\/p>\n

    \"Opswork\"<\/p>\n

    Step 12)<\/strong> Once the instance is launched, you will get a Public IP<\/p>\n

    \"Static<\/p>\n

    Then when you browse to the Public IP address in another tab you will get the home page of the nginx web server.<\/p>\n

    \"ngnix<\/p>\n

    Step 13)<\/strong> Next look at deploying your application. Click on \u2018Add app\u2019 in the Apps section of the stack.<\/p>\n

    \"AWS<\/p>\n

    Step 14)<\/strong> In the App section, choose the following settings. Choose \u2018Static\u2019 in this case.<\/p>\n

    \"AWS<\/p>\n

    Step 15)<\/strong> Enter the URL for the source code. Ensure to provide the code from the GitHub public repository of your choice.<\/p>\n

    \"Cloud<\/p>\n

    You can add additional settings if required<\/p>\n

    \"AWS<\/p>\n

    Step 16)<\/strong> Now that you have the app, click on \u2018Deploy\u2019<\/p>\n

    \"Opswork<\/p>\n

    Choose the Deploy option. When deploying you have the ability to deploy the code to a set of instances only or to all instances.<\/p>\n

    \"Opswork<\/p>\n

    The other commands do the following –<\/p>\n

    a) Undeploy – Triggers an Undeploy\u00a0lifecycle event<\/a>, which runs the un-deploy recipes to remove all versions of the app from the specified instances.<\/p>\n

    b) Rollback – Restores the previously deployed app version.<\/p>\n

    c) Start Web server – Runs recipes that start the application server on the specified instances. This command is not available in Chef 12 stacks.<\/p>\n

    d) Stop Web Server – Runs recipes that stop the application server on the specified instances. This command is not available in Chef 12 stacks.<\/p>\n

    e) Restart Web Server – Runs recipes that restart the application server on the specified instances. This command is not available in Chef 12 stacks.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    Start Web Server,\u00a0Stop Web Server,\u00a0Restart Web Server, and\u00a0Rollback\u00a0are essentially customized versions of the\u00a0Execute Recipes stack command<\/a>. They run a set of recipes that perform the task on the specified instances.<\/p>\n