Launching the Cluster Manager AMI

Make sure to review the requirements before proceeding with the installation. See Reviewing Aspera Transfer Cluster Manager Requirements.
  1. Click EC2 under the Compute section. Select AMIs from the Images section on the left sidebar. Select the private AMI provided by Aspera and click Launch.
  2. Go to My AMIs and select the Cluster Manager AMI you copied from Aspera.
  3. Choose an instance type. The Cluster Manager requires at minimum a m4-medium image type.
    Click Next: Configure Instance Details.
  4. Configure your instance details on the Configure Instance Details page.
    See the table below for the minimum configuration for launching the Cluster Manager AMI:
    Option Instructions
    Network Select a VPC from the Network drop-down menu.
    Subnet Choose a subnet.
    Note: If you choose a private subnet, but your transfer nodes are on a public subnet, you must follow the instructions in Running the Cluster Manager in a Private VPC to allow the Cluster Manager to manage the transfer nodes.
    Auto-assign Public IP To allow access to the Cluster Manager web application from outside of the VPC, select Enable from the Auto-assign Public IP drop-down menu.
    IAM role Select the atc-manager IAM role for your cluster manager.
  5. If you want to configure Cluster Manager to use a remote database, expand the Advanced Detail section on the Configure Instance Details page and enter your configuration details into the User Data field.
    If you are using the remote RDS database, expand the and add user data. For more information, see Creating the RDS Database.

    The configuration of the external database occurs through user data passed to the instance on startup. The user data is a JSON structure containing remote database and backup configuration:

    {
        "restore": false,
        "statestore_backup_period": "minutes",
        "database": {
            "host": "rds_endpoint_url",
            "port": port,
            "user": "username",
            "password": "password"
        }
    }
    To start a replacement instance, set "restore" to true. For more information, see Restoring a Failed ATCM Instance.

    The Cluster Manager perform backups of the Redis state store data to the specified database. The statestore_backup_period specifies how often the Cluster Manager performs a backup. The default period is one minute ("1m").

    A sample configuration may look like the following:
    { 
        "restore": true,
        "statestore_backup_period": "1m",
        "database": { 
            "host": "atp-mgr.c6joynsbdgxy.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com", 
            "port": 3306, 
            "user": "root", 
            "password": "secret" 
        } 
    } 
  6. If you want to
    Note: If you are using the AWS Auto Scaling feature and the Cluster Manager is located in a private subnet, but the transfer nodes are located in a public subnet, you must configure the Cluster Manager AMI to launch with a static IP address. You can use a custom script in the user data to set a static IP for the Cluster Manager. For more information, see Running the Cluster Manager in a Private VPC.
    Click Next: Add Storage.

Adding storage and tagging your instance are optional steps. The default root partition is 8 GB. That size is sufficient if you are using a remote database (for example, RDS). If you are using a local database and plan to run this system in production, create a larger partition (for example, 20 GB). To skip these options, click Next: Tag Instance > Next: Configure Security Group.

  1. On the Configure Security Group page, choose Select an existing security group and then select the atc-manager security group from the list.
    For more information on the atc-manager security group, see Creating the Cluster Manager Security Group.
  2. Click Review and Launch > Launch.