Use AWS instance as a WPM playback location

10/22/2018 10:59 AM

10/22/2018 10:59 AM

This article describes how to sign up for Amazon Web Services (AWS) and use an EC2 instance as a playback location by deploying a WPM Player. 

Web Performance Monitor

Note the following details before proceeding:

• If using seum.online.solarwinds.com as the playback location, TLS 1.0 and 1.1 are not supported. Use TLS 1.2 instead.
• The ability to add a playback location for an EC2 instance was deprecated in WPM 3.0.
• For the latest available regions, see AWS Global Infrastructure. See also AWS Service Endpoints.
• Amazon charges for the time an instance is active. If you stop an instance but keep the instance and disk image available to restart at another time, you'll be charged for the storage used for the disk image (volume), but not for the actual stopped instance.
• AWS links in this article are © 2020 Amazon Web Services, Inc., available at https://aws.amazon.com and http://docs.aws.amazon.com/, obtained on January 6, 2020.

Sign up for Amazon Web Services and create an EC2 instance

1. Navigate to Create an AWS account. 
2. Follow the onscreen instruction to sign up for an AWS account. 
3. Log into the AWS Management Console and set up your root account. 
4. Launch and configure an Amazon Elastic Computer Cloud (EC2) instance. See Getting Started with Amazon EC2 for reference and note the following details:
   • When creating an Amazon EC2 Key Pair, save the generated PEM file locally; you will need it for a future step.
   • When adding a Security Group for the WPM Player (for example, WPMPlayerSecurity) to define inbound network connections that can connect to the instance, add these two rules:
     • Port: 3389 (RDP), Source: 0.0.0.0/0
     • Port: 17781 (HTTP*),  Source:0.0.0.0/0 

Connect to your new instance remotely 

1. On the AWS Management Console, select Instances from the Navigation window on the left.
2. Locate and select the instance you want to connect to in the list of instances. 
3. From the Instance Action list, select Get Windows Admin Password. 
   Note: It takes a few minutes after the instances starts up before this will work.  If the instance is not yet ready, the Not available yet error will appear.
4. Enter the private key from the Key Pair you used to create this instance. This is the contents of the PEM file you downloaded previously. Paste the entire file’s contents and then click Decrypt Password.
5. Start Remote Desktop and connect to this instance.  Log in as Administrator and use the decrypted password that was displayed.
6. After you connect to Remote Desktop, you can change the Administrator password. At this point, the instance is just another virtual machine.

Install the WPM Player 

1. Connect to the AWS EC2 instance via Remote Desktop.
2. Add an inbound rule to the Windows firewall for the WPM communications port, 17781. Enter the following command at the command prompt:

   netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name = WPMPlayerSecurity dir = in protocol = tcp action = allow localport = 17781

3. For WPM 2.2.3 or earlier, disable Internet Explorer (IE) Enhanced Security.
   1. Go to Start > Administrative Tools > Server Manager.
   2. Click Configure IE ESC.
   3. Select Off for both Administrators and for Users.
   4. Click OK.
4. The EC2 image has C:\ProgramData\Application Data as a Junction to S:\ProgramData but there is no S drive. Remove the junction and create the directory so that the log files will work correctly executing the following from a command prompt:

   rmdir “C:\ProgramData\Application Data”
   mklink /J “C:\ProgramData\Application Data” C:\ProgramData

5. Add a WPM Player to the instance, as described in Deploy WPM Players to remote systems. 
6. In the Windows Start menu, open WPM Player Settings. (The file location is C:\Program Files (x86)\SolarWinds\Orion\SEUM\Player\SolarWinds.SEUM.AgentSettings.exe.) 
7. Set up the WPM Player hosted on the instance. See Configure WPM Players or details. 

Note: Each EC2 instance has its own public IP address that is constant while the instance is running. If you stop and then restart the instance, it will have a different public IP address and hostname. To maintain a stable IP address even when the instance is off, assign an Elastic IP to the instance. While the address is attached to a running instance, you are not charged for the IP address, just for the instance.  However, if the Elastic IP is not assigned to any running instances, you will be charged a small fee.  

 

Disclaimer: Please note, any content posted herein is provided as a suggestion or recommendation to you for your internal use. This is not part of the SolarWinds software or documentation that you purchased from SolarWinds, and the information set forth herein may come from third parties. Your organization should internally review and assess to what extent, if any, such custom scripts or recommendations will be incorporated into your environment.  You elect to use third party content at your own risk, and you will be solely responsible for the incorporation of the same, if any.