CI/CD pipeline for creating a new AWS AMI

Question

Hi AWS, I have a query i.e. if you have an EC2 instance and you have some 10 applications running on it. I want to take the snapshot of this instance but moving forward if I have another 15 applications running I want a new snapshot will be created with all 25 applications/software. Having said that I want every snapshot to be stored with proper naming convention and tagging and it furthers create the AMI. So, in case the instance goes down it will be replaced with the latest AMI and I want this all to be done with zero downtime.

Now, on top of this for instance I am doing this manually which is very time consuming and error prone. So I want to introduce a CI/CD way to do this on epoch basis after every one week or so just to monitor the current state and meet it to the desired state.

I want to know whether this is really feasible or not practically and if so which all tools we can look for including AWS agnostic and third party tools like Jenkins and GitHub?

Answer

Hi.

You can use automation and [EC2 Image Builder](https://aws.amazon.com/image-builder/) to accomplish this.
This is a [blog post / tutorial](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/infrastructure-and-automation/create-amis-with-aws-codepipeline/) using CodePipeline.

You should be able to copy the steps to whatever CI/CD you are using. Hope it helps.

Answer

Hi,
The most efficient way for your to proceed with your multiple image creations is to use EC2 Image builder: https://aws.amazon.com/image-builder/

User guide: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/imagebuilder/latest/userguide/what-is-image-builder.html

Practical examples at 
* https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/automate-os-image-build-pipelines-with-ec2-image-builder/
* https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/implementing-up-to-date-images-with-automated-ec2-image-builder-pipelines/

Best,

Didier

CI/CD pipeline for creating a new AWS AMI

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