Deploying XMPie Server Products on Amazon Web Services

Summary: This article lists the main resource requirements and cost considerations for running XMPie PersonalEffect Server products on Amazon Web Services infrastructure.

Audience: Customers who wish to host their servers on Amazon EC2.

Overview

This article lists the main resource requirements and cost considerations for running XMPie PersonalEffect Server products on Amazon Web Services infrastructure.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a cloud computing platform that provides a suite of infrastructure services. The usage of AWS cloud provides a highly reliable and secured infrastructure for deploying XMPie Server products.

Infrastructure

Amazon Web Services provide a reliable, secure, and highly-performing infrastructure for the most demanding applications, an infrastructure that matches XMPie server products solution. AWS can also deliver a scalable cloud computing platform with high availability and dependability.

The diagram below represents a dedicated Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) within Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud with Public and Private subnets. Usually, only the Public subnet is exposed to the web while the Private subnet remains secured.

We recommend this scenario if you want to run a public-facing web application, while maintaining back-end servers that aren't publicly accessible. A common example is XMPie StoreFlow, with a web server in the Public subnet and the Application/DB server in the Private subnet.

The following is a sample configuration of the XMPie StoreFlow deployed on AWS within a VPC with a Public and Private Subnets:

The best security practice scenario is to run a public-facing web application server, while maintaining back-end servers that aren't publicly accessible.

Security

XMPie PersonalEffect deployed on AWS is designed to meet security best practices, such as:

  • Environment Isolation – This is achieved by using Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC).

  • Amazon VPC provisions a logically isolated section of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud.

  • Firewall - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) provides a complete firewall solution; every Amazon EC2 instance (virtual machine) is protected by security groups. Security groups provide firewall protection for the running instances. The traffic can be restricted by protocol, by service port, as well as by source IP address.

  • Secure Socket Layer (SSL) - a protocol for data encryption over the Internet is supported.

  • The physical security is handled by the service provider (AWS).

Minimal System Requirements

XMPie PersonalEffect can be deployed in any of the following configurations:

  • XMPie Turn-Key Systems – A basic XMPie Turn-Key system (excluding Print) includes at least two servers: a single Production Server and a front-end web server.

  • XMPie Enterprise Platforms – The XMPie Enterprise Platforms (excluding Print) includes at least three servers: Director, Extension and a front-end web server.

Note that any PersonalEffect System can be deployed on AWS Infrastructure without a front-end Web Server. This configuration is NOT recommended by XMPie since it directly exposes the Application/DB Server to the web.

As a minimum requirement, XMPie PersonalEffect runs on top of M5 family instance types from AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). This family provides a balance of compute, memory and network resources. The main Features for M5 instances are:

  • Up to 3.1 GHz Intel Xeon Scalable processor (Skylake 8175M or Cascade Lake 8259CL) with new Intel Advanced Vector Extension (AVX-512) instruction set

  • Support for Enhanced Networking

  • Balance of compute, memory, and network resources

The table below represents the AWS instance’s specifications for each of the PersonalEffect packages (both for Turn-key and Platforms systems). These are the minimum requirements with the corresponding Amazon EC2 instance types.

XMPie Turn‐key Systems

AWS Instance Type

vCPU

RAM (GiB)

PersonalEffect Print

M5.large

2

8

PersonalEffect Print Pro

M5.xlarge

4

16

PersonalEffect StoreFlow

M5.large

2

8

PersonalEffect StoreFlow Pro

M5.xlarge

4

16

PersonalEffect TransMedia

M5.large

2

8

PersonalEffect TransMedia Pro

M5.xlarge

4

16

 

 

 

 

XMPie Platforms

AWS Instance Type

vCPU

RAM (GiB)

Enterprise Print - Director

M5.large

2

8

Enterprise Print - Extension

M5.large

2

8

Enterprise Cross Media - Director

M5.large

2

8

Enterprise Cross Media - Extension

M5.xlarge

4

16

 

 

 

 

XMPie add-on

AWS Instance Type

vCPU

RAM (GiB)

Front-end Web Server

T3.medium

2

4

uProduce 8-Way MI

M5.2xlarge

8

32

* The information above can vary and it is true as of November 2022.

Amazon Web Services Cost Details

XMPie PersonalEffect deployed on AWS infrastructure includes a few elements (AWS services) to be considered when calculating the total monthly/yearly cost. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) allows you to pay only for capacity that you actually use.

In order to fully understand the total cost of any XMPie PersonalEffect package deployed on AWS infrastructure, you should be familiar with all AWS elements and services presented in the following sections.

Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances

Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances (“RIs”) allow you to make a low, one-time payment to reserve instance capacity and further reduce the on-going Amazon EC2 costs. Reserved Instances provide the ability to maximize your level of savings by purchasing the Reserved Instance that meets your business’s needs. There are various Reserved Instance types. Instance types comprise of various combinations of CPU, memory, storage and networking capacity. For example, m5.large. RIs enable you to balance the amount you pay upfront with your effective hourly price.

You can choose between three payment options: All Upfront, Partial Upfront and No Upfront.

In this document we only refer to the All Upfront payment option. All Upfront RIs offer the utmost saving of any Reserved Instance type.

AWS On-Demand Instances let you pay for compute capacity by the hour with no long-term commitments or upfront payments. Amazon offers significant price breaks for using reserved instances (RI’s) over on-demand instances.

Amazon EC2

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. Amazon EC2’s simple web service interface allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction. It provides you with complete control of your computing resources and lets you run on Amazon’s proven computing environment. Amazon EC2 changes the economics of computing by allowing you to pay only for capacity that you actually use. For details, see http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/

EBS

Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) provides persistent block-level storage volumes for use with Amazon EC2 instances in the AWS Cloud.  Each Amazon EBS volume is automatically replicated within its Availability Zone to protect you from component failure, offering high availability and durability. Amazon EBS volumes offer the consistent and low-latency performance needed to run your workloads. With Amazon EBS, you can scale your usage up or down within minutes – all while paying a low price for only what you provision. For details, see http://aws.amazon.com/ebs/pricing/

To summarize, with Amazon EBS, you only pay for what you use.

Elastic IP Address

You can have one Elastic IP (EIP) address associated with a running instance at no charge. If you associate additional EIPs with that instance, you will be charged for each additional EIP associated with that instance per hour on a pro rata basis. Additional EIPs are only available in Amazon VPC.

To ensure efficient use of Elastic IP addresses, Amazon imposes a small hourly charge when these IP addresses are not associated with a running instance or when they are associated with a stopped instance or unattached network interface. For details, see http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/

Data Transfer

Data Transfer pricing is based on data transferred "in" to and "out" of Amazon EC2. Pricing information can be found at https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/on-demand/

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)

Amazon S3 can be used alone or together with other AWS services such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). Amazon S3 provides cost-effective object storage for a wide variety of use cases including cloud applications, backup and archiving and disaster recovery. For details, see http://aws.amazon.com/s3/

Amazon S3 can be used for backup AWS EC2 running instances by creating snapshots into S3.

AWS Simple Monthly Calculator

You can estimate your costs by using AWS Simple Monthly Calculator. The calculator is a JavaScript-based tool that allows you to calculate your monthly cost for using Amazon EC2, Amazon S3 and more. For details, see http://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html

Durability and Availability

XMPie PersonalEffect systems deployed on AWS infrastructure are mainly based on top of AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service. The service runs within Amazon’s proven network infrastructure and data centers.

Amazon Web Services offer a highly reliable environment by using the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). Amazon EC2 is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. The Amazon EC2 Service Level Agreement commitment is 99.95% availability for each Amazon EC2 Region.

 

Created by: Arik Michaelovich, updated by Mohammad Mansour on July, 2022