AWS Services:

Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale cloud computing easier for developers. EC2's simple web service interface allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk is an easy-to-use service for deploying and scaling web applications and services. You can simply upload your code and Elastic Beanstalk automatically handles the deployment, from capacity provisioning, load balancing, auto-scaling to application health monitoring. At the same time, you retain full control over the AWS resources powering your application and can access the underlying resources at any time. 


Description of the finding:

AWS has created its own server processors based on the Arm architecture, called AWS Graviton. These Arm-powered servers can use in Amazon EC2 virtual machine instances. If you have an application that’s workload supports ARM you can migrate your instance to a1 instance type.  So that it lowers your AWS operational costs and also enhances security for cloud applications.

Key Features of a1 instance

  • Powered by AWS Graviton Processors

  • High-Performance Networking and Storage

  • Built on AWS Nitro System

  • Lower Cost

  • Maximized Resource Efficiency


Recommendation:

Consider switching to a1 instances if your application workload support ARM.

If you have an application that currently running on an EC2 instance that supports ARM, you can upgrade your instance type to a1 instances which are lower in cost, high performance, and more efficient. By making this change you can reduce your EC2 costing.

*Resource information Listed below*

Note: Coordinate with client to get Approval to Proceed to Remediate issue. THIS REMEDIATION WILL REQUIRE DOWNTIME.

Affected Service Dependencies: 

  • EC2 instances

  • Elastic Load balancers

  • Elastic IP

  • EBS Volumes

  • Snapshots


Implementation Plan:

Pre Requisites:

  1. Should have an application that’s workload supports ARm

  2. Compute info needs to be identified; CPU/Memory/Storage

  3. Approval Required from the client for the downtime of the instance

  4. Check if there is a dependency on the IP address; or if Elastic IP is associated

  5. Make sure all the configurations are noted: KMS Keys; Network related configs; IAM roles 

  6. Perform Snapshot of the instance as a backup


Current Status: (Check which Instance type is using currently)

  • Sign in to AWS console

  • Navigate to EC2 service https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/

  • Click on the Instances, under Instances in the left navigation pane

  • Select the instance that you want to examine

  • You can find the current instance type from the details shown by selecting the instance

  • If the current instance is other than a1 instance and you want to change it to a1 instance, go through the implementation steps


Implementation steps:

  • Sign in to the AWS Management console

  • Navigate to EC2 service https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/

  • Click on the Instances, under Instances in the left navigation pane

  • Select the instance that you want to upgrade

  • Click on the Instance State on top and select stop Instance from the dropdown options (Note: we can not change the instance type when the instance is running)

  • Click on the Actions button on the top and select the Instance settings from the dropdown options
  • Click on the Change instance type 
  • Change instance type window will open and then click on the down arrow, it will show all the instances types available
  • Select the a1 Instance type from the options shown
  • Click on Apply


Status after Implementation:

The instance type column of the particular EC2 instance that you changed has to show the type that you selected i.e, a1 instances.  Follow the steps of the current status to check.

  • Make sure the instance type that you changed(a1 instance) is shown in the instance type column.


Back Out Plan: (If you want to rollback to the previous type)

If you want to roll back to the previous instance type at any moment, just follow the steps that you followed in the Implementation steps section, and then in the step where we want to choose instance type, select the instance type that you want to roll back.

Perform restoration of the volume from the snapshot in case of any data loss or corruption

  • Sign in to AWS console; Navigate to EC2 service https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/

  • Click on snapshots under Elastic Block Storage, in the left navigation pane

  • Select the snapshot that needs to restore from the list of snapshots available in your account and click on the Actions dropdown button and then click on create Volume

Note: Keep the Snapshot for 5 business days before discarding it.


Reference: 

https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/graviton/

https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/a1/#