News

AWS Adds 'Quick Start' Deployment Solutions for Big Data Analytics, More

• By David Ramel
• March 6, 2017

For enterprises looking to quickly get started with key cloud workloads on the Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS) cloud, the company has added Quick Start simplified deployment solutions for Big Data analytics and more.

AWS Quick Start solutions provide reference deployment packages for popular products, combining security and high availability best practices with deployment guides and AWS CloudFormation templates for fast cloud computing onramps.

Designed to reduce the complexity of the deployment process by replacing complex procedures that might involve hundreds of manual steps with one-click functionality, they come in seven categories: DevOps; Databases & Storage; Big Data & Analytics; Security & Compliance; Microsoft & SAP; Networking & Access; and Additional.

AWS said some of the ways in which they can be used include:

• As a baseline for your own implementations. Use the patterns and practices from Quick Starts to develop your own solutions.
• To accelerate solutions for your customers. The Quick Starts are modular and customizable. You can speed up your deployments by using the default automation or by stacking on top of existing Quick Starts. You can choose to build from the ground up, or you can deploy the workload into an existing virtual private cloud (VPC).
• For agile, frictionless proof-of-concept and scenario testing. Spin up and take down environments as needed to iterate through your scenarios in the least amount of time.

The company has introduced six new Quick Starts over the past couple of months, said spokesperson Jeff Barr in an a blog post last week.

In the Big Data & Analytics category, new offerings have been added for Tableau Server and Splunk Enterprise.

"The Tableau Server on AWS Quick Start helps you to deploy a fully functional Tableau Server on the AWS Cloud," Barr said. "You can launch a single node deployment in your default VPC [Virtual Private Cloud], or a multi-node cluster deployment in a new or existing VPC."

According to the Tableau Quick Start guidance, "Tableau Server is an online solution for sharing, distributing and collaborating on business intelligence content created in Tableau. Tableau Server users can create workbooks and views, dashboards, and data sources in Tableau Desktop, and then publish this content to the server."

The other new Big Data & Analytics entry -- Splunk Enteprise -- can be launched into an existing VPC with at least two Availability Zones, or users can create a new VPC.

"The Splunk platform makes machine data accessible, usable and valuable to everyone," AWS guidance says. "Splunk Enterprise enables you to search, monitor, and analyze machine data from any source to gain valuable intelligence and insights across your entire organization.

"With Splunk Enterprise on the AWS Cloud, you gain all the flexibility of the AWS infrastructure to tailor your Splunk Enterprise deployment according to your needs, and you can modify your deployment on demand, as these needs change."

The new Tableau Server and Splunk Enterprise items join Cloudera EDH, BDM and PowerCenter entries in the Big Data & Analytics category.

AWS also announced several other new Quick Starts.

In the Security & Compliance section, a UK-OFFICIAL Quick Start has been added for workloads classified as United Kingdom (UK) OFFICIAL, along with the Symantec Protection Engine.

In the Additional category, Alfresco One has been added, to deploy an associated Enterprise Content Management server cluster.

The AWS Quick Start site now lists 46 individual items, which can be used with no additional fees beyond normal AWS usage costs.