Launch SolarWinds DPA on Amazon Web Services on a Linux AMI with AWS Marketplace Metering Service

Amazon Marketplace lets users easily provision software in Amazon Web Services (AWS) with a few clicks in a few minutes. With this deployment options, you do not need to purchase and allocate individual DPA licenses. AWS Marketplace Metering Service is used to calculate DPA charges based on the number of database instances you monitor.

See the following sections to get started using DPA in AWS:

• Differences between AWS and self-managed servers
• Prerequisites
• Requirements
• Launch SolarWinds DPA
• Register databases for monitoring
• How to access your EC2 instance

Differences between AWS and self-managed servers

• AWS Marketplace Metering Service

  For this type of deployment, you do not need to purchase and allocate individual DPA licenses. As you register databases and monitor them, DPA charges your Amazon Subscription through the AWS Marketplace Metering Service. DPA charges are based on the number of database instances you monitor each hour. See the AWS Marketplace for details and pricing.

  If you want to use individual DPA licenses in the Amazon cloud, you can deploy an EC2 instance, install DPA, and apply your licenses. You cannot use both individual DPA licenses and the AWS Marketplace Metering Service on a single DPA server.

• Different default ports

  You can access the SolarWinds DPA user interface on HTTPS port 443. The firewall settings have been set to allow HTTPS traffic.

Prerequisites

Before you launch DPA on AWS, you must:

• Have an AWS Marketplace account.
• Install the DPA repository database, or identify an existing database to use as the repository. Make sure:
  • The repository is not installed in a critical production database instance.
  • The repository database and server meet the repository database requirements.
  • You have credentials with the required privileges.

Note: Backup and recovery of the repository database is outside the scope of this guide.

EC2 Requirements

The EC2 instance containing the DPA server must meet the following requirements.

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https://metering.marketplace.{region}.amazonws.com/

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Launch SolarWinds DPA

1. Log in to the AWS Marketplace.

2. Enter SolarWinds DPA in the search field, and then select Database Performance Analyzer - Subscription (Linux) from the results list.

   

   Product information is displayed.

3. Click Continue to Subscribe.

4. On the Sign in page, select a role with the required permission (see the Requirements section for more information):

   • If a role has already been created, click Choose an existing IAM role and then select the role.

   • If your account has permissions to create roles, you can create a role with the required permissions.

     If necessary, contact your administrator and have your administrator set up an account with the correct permissions.

5. Click the available buttons to accept the terms and conditions and then to continue through the configuration and launch pages. The following table describes DPA requirements or recommendations for the values of specific fields.

   Note: This table does not include all fields. For comprehensive information from AWS, see Getting started as a buyer.

   Field	Description
   Region	Select the Amazon EC2 region in which you want to launch the instance. SolarWinds recommends selecting a region that contains the database instances that you will monitor with DPA.
   Launch this software > Choose Action	Select Launch through EC2.
   Name and tags	Create one or more tags to more easily recognize this Amazon EC2 resource: As the Name tag, enter SolarWinds DPA. To add other tags, click Add additional tags. Then, for each tag, click Add tag and enter the Key and Value.
   Instance Type	Select an instance type that is at least a t2.medium. The t2.medium type is an economical and logical size to start with. However, if you are monitoring larger numbers of database instances or very active database instances, you will need the increased resources and optimizations offered by larger instance types. You can select the size you need now, and then resize to a larger instance type later if necessary. For more information on changing the instance size, see this article from Amazon.
   Key pair (login)	Create or select the key pair that provides security for your AMI instance. Do not select Proceed without a key pair. To create a new key pair, click Create new key pair. Then enter the name, select the options, and click Create key pair. The key pair file is automatically downloaded. Store this file in a secure and accessible location. To use an existing key pair, select it from the drop-down menu. Note: You can read more about EC2 key pairs here: Amazon EC2 key pairs and Linux instances.
   Network Settings	Select a Network and Subnet, or accept the default. If you have used Amazon EC2 before, you probably already have an Amazon VPC network and subnet set up. Your existing network and subnet will be selected here by default. Enable Auto-assign public IP so you can connect to SolarWinds DPA from your desktop.
   Firewall (security groups)	Create a security group and specify the source of the SSH, HTTPS, and HTTP traffic that is allowed to access DPA: To allow access from anywhere, select Anywhere. (This is less secure.) To restrict access to DPA to your current IP address, select My IP. To restrict access to DPA to people in your organization, select Custom. Then specify an IP range in CIDR notation that matches the external IP addresses used in your organization.
   Configure storage	Show the details and verify the following: For the Size, SolarWinds recommends 20 GB. This size is for the DPA instance only. It does not include the DPA repository. For Delete on termination, SolarWinds recommends selecting No. Separately deleting the data volume after terminating an instance is a good precautionary practice.
   Advanced details > Metadata version	Select V1 and V2. Note: This value for the Metadata version setting is required to allow DPA to meter usage. The default value does not allow for DPA monitoring.

6. Review the summary and click Launch instance.

7. Wait a few minutes for the provisioning and initialization to finish.

Access SolarWinds DPA and create the repository database

You can access your SolarWinds DPA server with its host name or IP address.

1. On the Amazon EC2 Instances page, find the public DNS or public IP of your new SolarWinds DPA server.

   

2. Open a web browser and enter the host name (Public DNS) or IP address of your new SolarWinds DPA server as the URL. 
3. The first time you log in:
   1. Configure the DPA repository database .
   2. Agree to the EULA.
   3. Select your time zone.
   4. Start registering databases.

Register databases for monitoring

Your SolarWinds DPA server must be able to connect to the databases that you want to monitor. Make sure that the security group of your databases allows SQL traffic from your EC2 instance running SolarWinds DPA.

If you encounter difficulty connecting to databases or RDS instances from your SolarWinds DPA server, see SolarWinds DPA Technical Reference Solving Amazon EC2 and RDS connectivity problems .

To register databases, click Register DB Instance for Monitoring. For more information, see Register a database instance for monitoring.

How to access your EC2 instance

You can connect to the Linux AMI using SSH (make sure the firewall allows the SSH port). Authentication is based on a public key. For example:

ssh -i <your_key_pair.pem> <your_ec2_instance>.computer-1.amazonaws.com

You can create a new public key or use one already generated for multiple VMs during the AMI deployment process.