Automation Features

Automation Features

In a nutshell, an enStratus deployment automates the ongoing processes of keeping the appli- cation 100% available. This includes automating backups.

Backups are automated at two different levels. First, enStratus calls scripts to run backups and uploads the backups to a cloud storage provider such as Amazon’s S3. For example, your scripts might create a compressed backup of your MySQL or SQL Server database. Second, in the Amazon cloud, enStratus creates complete file system backups by making snapshots of attached EBS volumes. Both types of backups are run at custom intervals.

Automation also includes automatic detection of server failures. In the event of a server failure, enStratus automatically launches a new server based on the machine image configured for the server’s group. When the replacement server comes online enStratus re-attaches any volumes that were orphaned in the failure and restarts any installed services.

enStratus will also handle the creation and configuration of firewalls for all layers of the deploy- ment. enStratus creates firewall rules by opening access to database servers from application servers on the private IP address of the application servers. If load balancing is used, the application servers will only be reachable through the load balancer to their respective private IP addresses.

When deploying applications into an automated environment, all network traffic including the transfer of any necessary files in the form of service images is encrypted to and from the servers.

enStratus will automatically scale the number of servers in a server group up or down according to your parameters.

enStratus will periodically poll the health of the deployment services and report the status inside the enStratus console.

Any time there is a state change (loss of server, backup failure, etc..) enStratus will alert in the console and via email.

Now, let's look at Automated Events.