[rdiff-backup-users] Running rdiff-backup on Amazon Web Services

[Dean Cording]

Amazon Web Services (AWS) are a collection of remote computing services (also 
called web services) offered over the Internet by Amazon.com. Of particular 
interest to rdiff-backup users is the Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2) and the 
Elastic Block Store (EBS). 

EC2 is a commercial web service that allows customers to rent virtual computers 
on which to run their own computer applications, like an rdiff-backup server. 
Users create virtual machine images which can be launched when needed for an 
hourly fee. Each time a virtual machine is launched, it is created fresh from a 
static image. 

EBS provides persistent storage for EC2 machines. Volumes can be created and 
destroyed as required and are charged per gigabyte per month. 

Using AWS, you can run a remote rdiff-backup server with flexible persistent 
storage for off-site backups.

I have created an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) that runs rdiff-backup and 
provides a web interface for restoring files.  The image is publically 
available for anyone to use.  There is also a script that automates the 
starting up and terminating of the virtual server on demand from a local 
machine. Details on how to set it up are available at 
http://wiki.rdiff-backup.org/wiki/index.php/Amazon_AWS

Note that this hasn't been throughly tested yet but it does appear to be 
robust.  Please let me know if you have any issues or suggestions for 
improvement.  

I haven't linked the above wiki page to the main rdiff-backup wiki tree yet as 
this is only a limited release.  I am currently covering the storage and access 
charges for the AMI and I would like to see how much they are before releasing 
to the general public. 

Cheers,

Dean