Simplifying Hybrid Cloud Adoption with AWS: Realize edge computing and build compelling hybrid solutions on premises with AWS Outposts

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

Simplifying Hybrid Cloud Adoption with AWS

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To all AWS friends and the inspiring leaders Andy Jassy, Werner Vogels, James Hamilton, Jeff Barr, Peter DeSantis, and Anthony Liguori.

Contributors

About the author

Frankie Costa Negro is a technology wanderer. He began in IT as a FoxPro / dBase developer in 1994. Quite a lot has happened since then: heroic days learning Microsoft Office Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Creating macros with Microsoft Excel 5.0, and transitioning to Visual Basic 3.0. His developer career ended with Visual Basic 6.0 when he was invited to be a sysadmin in 1997. A lot of water has gone under the bridge and his on-premises stint ended in 2018 with an invitation to join AWS as a Cloud Support Engineer. Since then, it has all been hard work while having fun and making history. He came full circle by joining the AWS Outposts team to flex his on-premises muscles once again. When he is not working for AWS, he is working accompanied by music.

I want to thank my wonderful wife and soulmate, Claudia, for the relentless cheering-on and support that fueled my will to persevere throughout this journey. Heartfelt gratitude to the whole Packt editing team for being the North Star for this first-time book author. I want to acknowledge my beloved daughter, Giovanna, my inspiration for fulfilling the famous quote that tells us three things every human being should do during their time on Earth: Plant a tree, have a child, and write a book. Finally, I acknowledge each and every person that meets me with a smile and affection: you make me believe there is meaning and hope in this life so that it is worth living.

About the reviewer

Harsha Sanku is a Senior Partner Solutions Architect with AWS specializing in VMware Cloud on AWS, AWS Outposts, and AWS Networking. He has worked with customers and strategic partners, helping them design and build secure, resilient, and scalable environments using hybrid cloud services that deliver a consistent experience from the cloud to on-premises and at the edge. He also works with various partner engineering and service teams to build roadmaps and drive service enhancements. He has been working in the IT industry in multiple roles since 2006.

Table of Contents

Contributorsiv

Prefacexi

Part 1: Understanding AWS Outposts – What It Is, Its Components, and How It Works

1

An Introduction to AWS Outposts3

Defining hybrid, edge, and rugged edge IT spaces3

What is AWS Outposts?7

Hybrid architecture tenets11

Use cases for AWS Outposts17

Customer problems18

Customer opportunities21

Summary24

2

AWS Outposts Anatomy25

Structural elements – rack and power25

Rack27

Power30

Communications elements – networking33

Networking resources36

Capabilities – services and features46

Compute and storage47

Containers49

Databases51

S353

Connectivity elements – cables and connectors56

Summary59

3

Pricing, Ordering, and Installation61

AWS Outposts pricing options61

Pricing for services running on Outposts68

Placing an order71

Order fulfillment and installation process90

Pre-sales91

Sizing and pricing92

Order submission92

Site validation92

Order approval93

Delivery and installation93

Activation93

Summary94

Part 2: Security, Monitoring, and Maintenance

4

Operations and Working with Outposts Resources97

Working with instances97

Outposts networking design example101

Outposts instance launch example121

Working with local gateways133

Local gateway structure134

Local gateway route table135

Working with shared resources142

Summary148

5

Security Aspects in Outposts149

Data protection149

IAM in Outposts153

Using service-linked roles155

The physical security of Outposts162

Outposts resilience165

Compliance and certifications169

Summary170

6

Monitoring Outposts171

Monitoring with CloudWatch171

CloudWatch in action – alarms172

CloudWatch in action – dashboards176

CloudWatch visualizations on the AWS Outposts service page181

Logging with CloudTrail189

Query CloudTrail logs with Amazon Athena194

Summary204

Part 3: Maintenance, Architecture References, and Additional Information

7

Outposts Maintenance207

Hardware and software maintenance207

Network troubleshooting210

Instability or failure of your customer’s device211

Instability of your link aggregation (LAG)211

Misconfiguration of your customer’s device211

Faulty cables or transceivers212

Problems with ISPs and WAN providers212

Summary213

8

Architecture References215

How to find resources on the Outposts product page215

How to find resources in the AWS Architecture Center217

Relevant blogs and white papers on AWS websites219

Summary221

Index223

Other Books You May Enjoy232

Preface

AWS Outposts is the next wave in technology, bringing cloud infrastructure to customer premises. Understanding how to leverage this product to address hybrid scenarios is key to unleashing the full potential of the service and paving the way for your cloud journey. This book provides extensive coverage of everything Outposts, from zero to hero. You will begin your journey learning about the concepts of Hybrid Edge, transitioning to understand what AWS Outposts is and how it fits in this space alongside its common use cases. Next, you will have a tour that unveils its components, connections, and capabilities. With this in-depth knowledge, you will discover the processes and steps involved in having Outposts delivered and ready to use. Then, it is finally time to see your Outposts rack in action and leverage AWS services running in the rack. Security is a fundamental discipline and you will get detailed explanations about the security features in Outposts and thoroughly understand how to monitor and maintain Outposts. Your journey will conclude with a roadmap to raise your Outposts knowledge to a professional level, becoming a true Outposts hero!

Who this book is for

This book is intended for data center architects interested in understanding, designing, architecting, and building solutions with AWS Outposts, leveraging the product’s capabilities and best practices. DevOps professionals will understand how to build compelling hybrid solutions and applications using the same tools and technologies available in AWS regions. Business and project managers working on projects with AWS Outposts will also benefit from this book at a higher level, without the need to get into very technical details.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Introduction to AWS Outposts, opens with an elaboration of the section or area called the Edge in the IT realm because that is typically where Outposts lives, then transitions to cover what Outposts is, exploring some of its key concepts and terminology, wrapping up with some valid use cases this product is best suited for.

Chapter 2, AWS Outposts Anatomy, pops the hood to show Outposts components, how they interact with each other as well as with the environment and hooks within the facility where Outposts lives, how it operates with the underlying networks, and how it exposes its resources. Subsequently, we talk about the AWS services that can be leveraged in Outposts and how it connects to an AWS Region.

Chapter 3, Pricing, Ordering, and Installation, walks you through the ordering process step by step and talks about configuration options, pricing, and what happens after an order is completed so you can finally get your Outposts rack delivered to your facility.

Chapter 4, Operations and Working with Outposts Resources, talks about the setup procedure and some requirements. Finally, let’s start the Outposts engine and shows how to effectively use the product and begin to use the building blocks and the capabilities of AWS services it is capable of running to craft your hybrid application or use case.

Chapter 5, Security Aspects in Outposts, leverages the breadth and depth of AWS security services and capabilities to meet the most stringent security requirements. As it takes AWS technology outside the confines of AWS regions, controls and safeguards were added to the product and the Shared Security Model was changed a bit to assign an extra layer of responsibility to the customer.

Chapter 6, Monitoring Outposts, focuses on the metrics and visibility you can get from Outposts. To understand what is going on inside your system you need to translate collected data into information so you can take actions to control undesired events and behaviors. Furthermore, you can use that information to improve your architecture and operations.

Chapter 7, Outposts Maintenance, describes the shared responsibility model, a security and compliance framework that outlines the responsibilities of AWS and the customer. AWS is responsible for the hardware and software that runs AWS services and that includes maintenance tasks on AWS Outposts. These activities are highlighted alongside useful hints on how to troubleshoot connectivity issues.

Chapter 8, Architecture References, concludes our journey with cornerstone information about how to best leverage the product architecture to enable you to create compelling hybrid solutions using AWS Outposts.

To get the most out of this book

This book assumes that technical professionals possess strong foundations in data center technologies, servers, networking, and storage architectures and concepts and knowledge at the AWS Architect Associate Certification level. As for business professionals, a high-level understanding of technical terms and the building blocks of an IT infrastructure is assumed.

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code from the book’s GitHub repository (a link is available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to the copying and pasting of code.

Check the GitHub repository to find a collection of URLs to take your knowledge about Outposts to the professional level.

Download the example code files

You can download the example code files for this book from GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Simplifying-Hybrid-Cloud-Adoption-with-AWS. If there’s an update to the code, it will be updated in the GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots and diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://packt.link/amQG4.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: To create the remaining two subnets for this CIDR block, repeat the command adjusting the --availability-zone-id parameter accordingly, and also make note of the new subnet IDs.

A block of code is set as follows:

{

    LocalGateways: [

        {

            LocalGatewayId: lgw-0cdc67d1ae6c75ff8,

            OutpostArn: arn:aws:outposts:us-west-2:123456789012:outpost/op-8b286039iedad23e0,

            OwnerId: 123456789012,

            State: available,

            Tags: []

        }

    ]

}

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

aws ec2 describe-local-gateway-virtual-interface-groups \

    --local-gateway-virtual-interface-group-ids lgw-vif-grp-033d2b33464749f3a \

    --region us-west-2;

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see on screen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: Select System info from the Administration panel.

Tips or important notes

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Part 1: Understanding AWS Outposts – What It Is, Its Components, and How It Works

This part sets the stage for the next parts of the book. You will understand what AWS Outposts is, the tenets that drive the product design and engineering, and valid product use cases. Furthermore, it dives deep into the innards of the product and its interactions with the infrastructure it is built upon, closing with the price perspective, how to order an Outposts rack, and what happens before it is finally activated at the operating site.

This part has the following chapters:

Chapter 1, An Introduction to AWS