Objective:
Create a global web application with high availability, low-latency content delivery, and fault tolerance using AWS services across multiple regions and availability zones.
Step 1: Create a simple web application
- Launch an Amazon EC2 instance in one AWS region (e.g., us-east-1).
- Install a web server (e.g., Apache or Nginx) on the EC2 instance.
- Create a basic HTML web page and host it on the web server.
Step 2: Configure multiple regions
- Create a new EC2 instance in a different region (e.g., us-west-2).
- Configure Amazon Route 53 to set up global DNS load balancing between the two regions, routing user traffic to the nearest region based on geographic location.
Step 3: High availability with availability zones
- Create a high availability database using Amazon RDS or Amazon DynamoDB in the same region as the first EC2 instance.
- Configure an Auto Scaling group with EC2 instances in multiple availability zones within the same region.
- Test failover by simulating a failure in one availability zone.
Step 4: Content delivery with CloudFront
- Set up an Amazon CloudFront distribution to cache and deliver your web content globally, configuring it to use edge locations for content delivery.
- Observe how the content is cached at edge locations and served to users with low latency.
Step 5: Test edge locations with AWS Global Accelerator
- Create an AWS Global Accelerator and associate it with the endpoints in your two regions.
- Observe how Global Accelerator routes traffic through the AWS edge locations to optimize global access to your application.
Step 6: Monitor and optimize
- Use Amazon CloudWatch to monitor the performance and health of your application.
- Analyze the benefits of using multiple regions, availability zones, edge locations, and AWS Global Accelerator for high availability and low-latency access.
Step 7: Documentation and reflection
- Document the architecture, configurations, and your observations during the exercise.
- Reflect on the benefits and trade-offs of using AWS regions, availability zones, and edge locations for a global web application.
