If you're running in "the cloud", you should _always_ be able to destroy your instances and have them auto-rebuild from configuration management and a persistent object storage system (git repo + S3 or Google Nearline).
do you have any guides or tutorials I could possibly follow to have a setup like that? I'm working on configuring a site and would like the ability to 1) scale as quickly as possibly or 2) rebuild in event of total failure.
I just don't even know where to begin. Is this something I could stand up locally and push to like s3, spin up a new server and install 1 thing and have it pull the configs and software installs down?
> I just don't even know where to begin. Is this something I could stand up locally and push to like s3, spin up a new server and install 1 thing and have it pull the configs and software installs down?
Yes. You could use shell scripts, Ansible, Salt, Puppet, whatever. I'm fond of Ansible or shell scripts, depending on complexity.
Its a semi-religious topic, so you will get varied and loud opinions.
My opinion is ansible. Basically python + yml, you list out steps to set up your server. Takes a few minutes longer round 1, but you can remake the server in 60 seconds in 6 months. Lots of ansible tutorials around, try it out..
