AWS free user tier - how to deploy first Rails app

Question

I've signed up with Amazon Web Services free user tier. I'm a little overwhelmed with all the tools on offer. I've been deploying my apps recently to Heroku so familiar with using Git to deploy signs and the rest being taken care of. I also use shared hosting where I transfer my PHP app files using FTP. For individuals, how is this usually done on AWS? I have a year's worth of free usage, I see I can create an instance of Ubuntu server - is this what I need to do first then install software/ addons? I'd like to come to familiarize myself with this but happy to just get familiar with the dashboard, monitoring tools etc first so perhaps there is an easier way for a newbie starting out. I'm reading the getting started guide but unsure whether I should use S3 or EC1 to begin with. Can anyone suggest the best way to go for now? Thanks

Answer 1

1) Start by setting up an Elastic Beanstalk rails environment in AWS. There is a useful "eb" command line tool to help you do that.

2) Use the AWS SDK for Ruby, by adding the aws-rails gem to your gem file & bundle install it.

gem 'aws-sdk'

3) Now you can push changes to your AWS environment just like you did with heroku:

git aws.push

Refer to this page in AWS online help: Getting Started with the AWS SDK for Ruby