Toward more dynAMIc deploys

The bad old days

"LaunchConfig": {
    "Type": "AWS::AutoScaling::LaunchConfiguration",
    "Properties": {
        "ImageId": "ami-f6b11181", # standard Ubuntu AMI
        ...
        "UserData": {
            # Install Java
            # Install AWS CLI
            # Download authorized_keys
            # Download and extract app artifact
            # Start the app
        }
    }
}

https://github.com/guardian/content-api/blob/067418f115e8f73bf51e7964bd62e73f49dadec9/porter/cloudformation.json

Problems

• Slow

• Unreliable

• Duplicated effort

Solution

pre-bake dependencies into the AMI

machine-images

• Packer + a bunch of bash scripts
• Runs as a TeamCity build
• Installs a large number of 'features'

Problems

• No way to select the features you need
• Built AMIs are hard to discover and inspect
• Quickly descended into bash hell
• TeamCity + bunch of bash scripts is hard to grok

AMIgo

• Play app wrapping Ansible and Packer
• Installs only the features you need
• Pointy-clicky UI
• Scheduled bakes

DEMO

https://amigo.gutools.co.uk/

Riff Raff integration

(also AMIable)

The future

• Automated testing of AMIs using ServerSpec
• Docker??

Get involved!

https://github.com/guardian/amigo/issues