Hi Gang! 

Did you know you can deploy InterSystems IRIS Community Edition on the cloud without paying for a license? You can try for free, and it could even come in handy if you want to show off that shiny new app you've created (maybe for the full stack competition..?) 

In this article I will provide a complete walkthrough on how to deploy IRIS on Amazon Web Services (AWS), and will also add a follow up for deploying on Azure. 

Now before I begin the walkthrough, I want to admit that I was terrified of using AWS the first time because I'd seen memes about how easy it is to rack up costs on AWS. So if you're thinking the same, I suggest you start by signing up to a Free Tier Account, which gives you $100 free credit to evaluate, and automatically shuts off to prevent charges. InterSystems IRIS Community Edition has a free license so if you pair the two, you can deploy without risk and completely for free. (Disclaimer: although I'm sure this is true, please do read the free account terms and make your own decisions 😅 )

Walkthrough

Once signed in on AWS go to InterSystems IRIS Community Edition on the AWS Marketplace.

Click View Purchase Options to see the "Subscribe to InterSystems IRIS Community Edition page". This page includes Terms and Conditions, along with pricing details, which shows the Total amount as $0.00. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Subscribe:

 It might take a minute to process the Subscription. Afterwards you will be redirected to a page which includes the subscription information and a button saying "Launch your software". Note, the exact placement of this button on the page varies.

From here you can select your launch configuration and settings:

If you are not familiar with launching on AWS, it's recommended to use the EC2 Launch Console. Select this from the Launch Method and then click Launch from EC2.

EC2 Launch Console

The EC2 Launch console is where you define the settings for the Instance you are launching. You may wish to explore these settings in more detail yourself, but this guide will describe some of the core settings.

Name and Tags

These are used to recognise and identify the Instance. Organised naming and tagging is especially important if you are managing multiple AWS instances.

Application and OS Images (Amazon Machine Image)

This is where you select the virtual machine being run. If you have clicked through the InterSystems IRIS Community Edition marketplace page, you should have the correct Amazon Machine Image (AMI) already selected. Otherwise, you can select it from the catalog.

Instance Type

This is the hardware that InterSystems IRIS Community Edition will be running on. If you are a member of the free tier, you will be limited to small machines here. Choose your machine based on both workload size and budget, as more powerful machines will come at an increased cost.

Key Pair (Login)

The Key pair is the login key which you can use to connect to the instance via a Secure Shell connection (SSH). If you do not decide a Key pair here, you will not be able to log in via SSH.

Then, create a Key pair, this allows secure SSH logins, this will download a Private Key which you can use to login.

Unless you have previously created a Key pair you will need to generate a new one. For this, click Create new key pair, and in the pop-up choose a key name (to identify it), an encryption method and a file format (if you are uncertain about these, leave them as defaults).

Network Settings

Here you can define some Network Security settings, like limiting which IP addresses can connect to your instance and allowing HTTP/HTTPS Traffic. Depending on your use case and security concerns, the appropriate settings will vary, so consider the required settings for your desired use.

Storage

Choose the amount of storage needed for your instance. Note, the InterSystems IRIS Community Edition limits database storage to 10GB, so significantly more than this is unlikely to be required.

Advanced Details

There are a large number of additional settings available, including the ability to upload user data from the launch portal. These can be ignored for basic usage.

Launch Instance

After selecting your settings, click Launch Instance from the Summary panel on the right-hand side of the page.

You instance will take a bit of time to launch and do appropriate status tests, but after that will be available online.

Connect

Once you've started you instance, you can navigate to the instance summary by selecting the ID within the success message or navigating to the instances dashboard from the left-hand panel.

From the Instance Summary you can find the Public IPv4 address and Public DNS, either of which can be used to connect to the instance with SSH or as a web-server. The Public DNS is a redirect that routes to the IP address, so each option has the same result.

You can connect to the instance in different ways, some of which are described below.  

Whichever connection method you use, you will need to reset the password the first time you connect. The default credentials are:

- Username: _SYSTEM

- Password: SYS

If you are connecting from a command-line interface, change the password with:

iris password

and start an IRIS terminal with:

iris session iris

Note, every time you open a new terminal connection, the entry message will include a reminder to change your password, but this is only required once.

EC2 Instance Connect

On the Instance dashboard is a large button within the instance summary to Connect (see screenshot above). Click this to open the connection portal. The first tab of this is the EC2 Instance Connect tab. You can leave the defaults in place and  click Connect. This will open a new terminal window.  

SSH Client

You can connect using SSH, using the Private key downloaded earlier and either the IP or DNS addresses listed under the instance summary. Please note, when connecting to your InterSystems IRIS instance using SSH, you need to use the username `ubuntu`.

# Run to ensure key is not publically viewable
chmod 400 "My-Key-Pair.pem"
# Connect to instance using DNS
ssh -i "My-Key-Pair.pem" ubuntu@ec2-xx-xx-xxx-xxx.compute-1.amazonaws.com

# Connect to instance using Public IP
ssh -i "My-Key-Pair.pem" ubuntu@xx.xx.xxx.xxx

You can use an SSH connection to copy files to your instance using  scp, sftp or an SFTP client like FileZilla. For any of these, you will need to use your identify file as a key and "ubuntu" as the username.

Management Portal

You should be able to access the Management Portal at the DNS or IP addresses listed, unless the security settings you selected restrict this. To access the Management Portal, append  :52773/csp/sys/%25CSP.Portal.Home.zen to the IP or DNS addresss and open in your browser. i.e.

`http://ec2-xx-xx-xxx-xxx.compute-1.amazonaws.com:52773/csp/sys/%25CSP.Po...` or `xx.xx.xxx.xxx:52773/csp/sys/%25CSP.Portal.Home.zen`

Where x values are the server IP address.

Terminate Instance

When you are finished working with your InterSystems IRIS Community Edition instance and no longer want the demo online, consider terminating it to avoid excess charges. You can do this from the Instance Portal:

And there you have it! Thats todays guide for how to deploy InterSystems IRIS Community Edition on the Cloud with AWS