From one cloud to another (or is it the same one?)

As previously described, MongoLab offers multiple cloud options for your instances: AWS, Azure, etc. What about my now legendary Python program? ;) Shouldn't I also run it in the cloud? Yeah, thought so.

I've been using AWS for a while, mostly to store a ton of personal junk in S3 and Glacier, so the obvious choice is to launch an EC2 instance. I'm quite fond of micro-sized instances based on ubuntu/images/ebs/ubuntu-precise-12.04-amd64-server-20130411.1 (ami-ce7b6fba): 1 core, 600 MB of RAM, 8 GB of disk... and free :) Perfect for experimentation!

If you need to setup your own account, here's where to start. It's a straightforward process, no need to cover it in detail. Just some quick advice:

• Once you've created and downloaded the key pair associated to the instance, don't forget to chmod it to 400 (or 'ssh' will complain that it's not safe, bla bla bla)
• DO NOT LOSE THE KEYPAIR FILE, you won't be able to download it again. 
• When the instance is running, make sure you note its public name (e.g. ec2-54-217-8-54.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com), that's the one you'll use from the outside world.
• The 'ssh' port (22) is not open by default. "Security Groups" is where you need to look, just add a rule opening 22/TCP.

Now, let's connect to the instance with 'ssh':
$ ssh -i keypair.pem ubuntu@ec2-54-217-8-54.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com

ubuntu@ip-10-48-247-163:~$

Congratulations, you're on AWS. Now, let's add some more software to this instance:

ubuntu@ip-10-48-247-163:~$ sudo apt-get update
ubuntu@ip-10-48-247-163:~$ sudo apt-get install mongodb-clients

Can't wait to connect to your db? All right, let's give it a try with the 'mongo' client:

ubuntu@ip-10-48-247-163:~$ mongo -u USERNAME -p PASSWORD ds051067.mongolab.com:51067/mongolab-test

MongoDB shell version: 2.0.4

connecting to: ds051067.mongolab.com:51067/mongolab-test

> show collections

collection1

objectlabs-system

objectlabs-system.admin.collections

system.indexes

system.users 

This MongoDB instance is hosted by MongoLab in AWS, so we didn't travel too far. A nice mix of PaaS and IaaS, all based on the same infrastructure :)

Now let's add our Python tools:

ubuntu@ip-10-48-247-163:~$ sudo apt-get install build-essential python-dev

ubuntu@ip-10-48-247-163:~$ sudo apt-get install python-pip

ubuntu@ip-10-48-247-163:~$ sudo pip install pymongo

Let's copy our Python program to our EC2 instance:
$ scp -i keypair.pem mongo.py ubuntu@ec2-54-217-8-54.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com:~
mongo.py                                                                                

And now:
ubuntu@ip-10-48-247-163:~$ python mongo.py 
{u'x': 1.0, u'_id': ObjectId('51e3ce08915082db3df32bf0')}
{u'x': 2.0, u'_id': ObjectId('51e3ce08915082db3df32bf1')}
{u'x': 3.0, u'_id': ObjectId('51e3ce08915082db3df32bf2')}
output removed from brevity
{u'x': 25.0, u'_id': ObjectId('51e3ce08915082db3df32c08')}

What's the point of all this? Simply to quickly demonstrate:

1. the insane amount of software technology available to anyone willing to read a few books or wikis
2. how easy it is to get started and build fun stuff. You need nothing else on your own machine than 'ssh'!
3. it's all free (or very very unexpensive)

None of this was possible 10 years ago. Back in the day.... well, who cares. You kids sure have it too easy, so stop wasting your time on Facebook or on reality TV (absolute scum, will it ever stop?), learn some proper engineering skills, get smart and start solving some problems, ok? There ain't no shortage of them!

Old man over and out.