AWS - Mike Tabor

How I backup my VPS servers to AWS S3 bucket

May 15, 2019January 30, 2021 AWS

Lately I’ve been asked or seen questions regarding how to backup a WordPress site or VPS server. I know many use WordPress plugins, though I’m not a fan of this process.

My answer has always been that I use a script that backups up my website files and databases to an AWS S3 bucket. While I’ve shared the scripts with a few people that have asked, I figured I’d make a post and share the information with everyone.

In this post I’ll share my setup on how I backup all the VPS servers I manage to Amazon S3 buckets.

Using AWS Systems Manager to regain access to an EC2 machine

January 24, 2019 AWS

1 Comment

The other last night I received a call from a co-worker who added a Windows firewall rule to a production AWS EC2 machine running Server 2016. Soon after he couldn’t access the server via RDP nor were any of the IIS sites loading.

Of course a snapshot was not created prior to the change, because “It worked in Test”.

At first I thought we might be up a creek and restoring from an older backup. But, then I remembered AWS Systems Manager and the ability to send commands to an AWS EC2 machine via the AWS console.

Below are the quick steps I took to disable the Windows Firewall using AWS Systems Manager to regain access into the EC2 machine.

How to host a static website using AWS S3 and Cloudflare

May 30, 2018September 22, 2020 AWS

48 Comments

I’ve been noticing a previous post about how to host a static site using various AWS services has been gaining in popularity.

Most recently a blog post by Thom Greene (@tbgree00) had mentioned the previous article and while all the steps in the previous post are accurate and works – I wanted to share how I now host static websites using AWS S3 and Cloudflare.

How to migrate a VMware virtual machine to AWS

October 9, 2017October 12, 2017 AWS

3 Comments

At work we’ve been toying with the idea of moving some of our VMware workload off to AWS and I’ve been tasked with migrating a couple VMware virtual machines to AWS as a proof of concept for the time being.

In this post I’ll show how I setup the AWS Connector and did the migration from VMware to AWS using the AWS Server Migration Service.

Passed: AWS Solutions Architect – Associate Exam Tips

April 19, 2017April 19, 2017 AWS

0 Comments

Yesterday morning I finally took the AWS Solutions Architect – Associate and even managed to pass it!

While everything about the exam is still fresh in my mind I wanted to share my experience taking the Solutions Architect – Associate exam as well as share a few tips that certainly helped me in taking the exam in hopes that it might help others as well.

How to host a static website using AWS S3, CloudFront, Route 53 and Cert Manager

April 4, 2017April 3, 2017 AWS

8 Comments

In addition to running this blog I also run several online forum communities, but in the past I never had a place to showcase these communities in one place. This post will detail my steps I took to host a static website using AWS S3, CloudFront, Route 53 and Certificate Manager to showcase those communities all in one place. All without the need to worry manage another server.

Requirements before getting started:

An Amazon Web Services account.
Domain name – I use and suggest either Namecheap or NameSilo to register new domains if you haven’t already. (Use coupon SAVE1OFFNAMESILO at NameSilo to save $1.00)
Already have a static HTML page designed and ready to upload.

So briefly I’ll explain why I choose these services and what they will offer.