Can I use AWS Beanstalk to host a website?

[GGL]

TD thinks that the correct answer to this SAP question about hosting a website and I want to ask if one can host a website on AWS Beanstalk? I thought you host static website on S3? Please see the question and options below:

A print media company has a popular web application hosted on their on-premises network which allows anyone around the globe to search its back catalog and retrieve individual newspaper pages on their web portal. They have scanned the old newspapers into PNG image format and used Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to automatically convert images to a text file. The license of their OCR software will expire soon and the news organization decided to move to AWS and produce a scalable, durable, and highly available architecture.

Which is the best option to achieve this requirement?

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Create a new CloudFormation template which has EBS-backed EC2 instances with an Application Load Balancer in front. Install and run an NGINX web server and an open source search application. Store the images to EBS volumes with Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager configured, and which automatically attach new volumes to the EC2 instances as required.

Create a new S3 bucket to store and serve the scanned image files using a CloudFront web distribution. Launch a new Elastic Beanstalk environment to host the website across multiple Availability Zones and set up a CloudSearch for query processing, which the website can use. Use Amazon Rekognition to detect and recognize text from the scanned old newspapers.

Store the images in an S3 bucket and prepare a separate bucket to host the static website. Utilize S3 Select for searching the images stored in S3. Set up a lifecycle policy to move the images to Glacier after 3 months and if needed, use Glacier Select to query the archives.

Use S3 Intelligent-Tiering storage class to store and serve the scanned files. Migrate the on-premises web application as well as the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to an Auto Scaling group of Spot EC2 Instances across multiple Availability Zones with an Application Load Balancer to balance the incoming load. Use Amazon Rekognition to detect and recognize text from the scanned old newspapers.

Amazon CloudSearch is a managed service in the AWS Cloud that makes it simple and cost-effective to set up, manage, and scale a search solution for your website or application.

With Amazon CloudSearch, you can quickly add rich search capabilities to your website or application. You don’t need to become a search expert or worry about hardware provisioning, setup, and maintenance. With a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, you can create a search domain and upload the data that you want to make searchable, and Amazon CloudSearch will automatically provision the required resources and deploy a highly tuned search index.

You can easily change your search parameters, fine-tune search relevance, and apply new settings at any time. As your volume of data and traffic fluctuates, Amazon CloudSearch seamlessly scales to meet your needs.

Hence, the option that says: Create a new S3 bucket to store and serve the scanned image files using a CloudFront web distribution. Launch a new Elastic Beanstalk environment to host the website across multiple Availability Zones and set up a CloudSearch for query processing, which the website can use. Use Amazon Rekognition to detect and recognize text from the scanned old newspapers is correct because it satisfies the requirement given in the scenario i.e. it uses S3 to store the images, instead of the commercial product which will be decommissioned soon. More importantly, it uses CloudSearch for query processing, and in addition, it uses Multi-AZ implementation which provides high availability. It is also correct to use Amazon Rekognition to detect and recognize text from the scanned old newspapers.

Amazon Rekognition makes it easy to add image and video analysis to your applications. You just provide an image or video to the Rekognition API, and the service can identify the objects, people, text, scenes, and activities, as well as detect any inappropriate content. Amazon Rekognition also provides highly accurate facial analysis and facial recognition on images and video that you provide. You can detect, analyze, and compare faces for a wide variety of user verification, people counting, and public safety use cases.

The option that says: Create a new CloudFormation template which has EBS-backed EC2 instances with an Application Load Balancer in front. Install and run an NGINX web server and an open source search application. Store the images to EBS volumes with Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager configured, and which automatically attach new volumes to the EC2 instances as required is incorrect because an EBS volume is not a scalable nor a durable solution compared with S3. In addition, it is not as cost-effective compared to S3 since it entails maintenance overhead unlike the fully managed storage service provided by S3.

The option that says: Store the images in an S3 bucket and prepare a separate bucket to host the static website. Utilize S3 Select for searching the images stored in S3. Set up a lifecycle policy to move the images to Glacier after 3 months and if needed, use Glacier Select to query the archives is incorrect because although using S3 Select is a feasible option, it is not as scalable compared to CloudSearch. Amazon S3 Select can only retrieve a subset of data using SQL statements. Storing your data to Amazon Glacier will also affect the retrieval time of your data.

The option that says: Use S3 Intelligent-Tiering storage class to store and serve the scanned files. Migrate the on-premises web application as well as the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to an Auto Scaling group of Spot EC2 Instances across multiple Availability Zones with an Application Load Balancer to balance the incoming load. Use Amazon Rekognition to detect and recognize text from the scanned old newspapers is incorrect because even though it properly uses S3 for durable and scalable storage, it still uses the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software which will be decommissioned soon. It is better to use CloudSearch instead.

[Gerome-TutorialsDojo]

Hello GGL,

Thanks for the feedback.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk is like Amazon EC2, it can also host a website. The only difference between the two is that Elastic Beanstalk is a Platform-as-a-Service while EC2 is Infrastructure-as-a-Service. Your question is “how Elastic Beanstalk can host a website?”, you can check out these tutorials and samples from the AWS Elastic Beanstalk documentation.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/tutorials.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/GettingStarted.html

https://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/deploying-wordpress-with-aws-elastic-beanstalk.pdf

Based on the given scenario, the key point here is the “license of their OCR software will expire soon.” Among the options given and with the provided explanation. The best answer here is “Create a new S3 bucket to store and serve the scanned image files using a CloudFront web distribution. Launch a new Elastic Beanstalk environment to host the website across multiple Availability Zones and set up a CloudSearch for query processing, which the website can use. Use Amazon Rekognition to detect and recognize text from the scanned old newspapers.”

For more information about AWS Elastic Beanstalk, you can check out our AWS Elastic Beanstalk Cheat Sheet.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Let us know if you need further assistance. The Tutorials Dojo team is dedicated to helping you pass your AWS exam on your first try!

Regards,

Gerome @ Tutorials Dojo