Reviewing Aspera Transfer Cluster Manager Requirements

Before launching the Aspera Transfer Cluster Manager, take the following steps:

Confirm that you have received an ATC Manager image and node image from Aspera.

Important: It is no longer necessary to make a copy of the GA releases of ATC Manager or Aspera node images. However, if you are using a custom or pre-release version, Aspera recommends that you make a copy of the AMIs.
Create an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) in which to deploy ATC Manager.
For instructions, see Configuring an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC).
Create an internal Elastic Load Balancer.
For instructions, see Creating an Internal Elastic Load Balancer in AWS.
Create a key pair.
For instructions, see the AWS article on Amazon AWS Documentation website: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-key-pairs.html.
Create two security groups, one for the ATC Manager and one for the cluster nodes.
For instructions, see Creating Security Groups.
Set up your DNS service and assign your domain to it.
ATC Manager requires a DNS service that has APIs in order to programmatically modify the host entries used for the cluster, and that supports low TTL settings for the DNS host entries. The Route 53 service meets both of these requirements.
If you already have a domain: Register your domain with the DNS service.
- Route 53: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/CreatingNewSubdomain.html.
  Important: When configuring Route 53, the SOA (Start of Authority) entry in Route 53 has a configuration option for the negative result TTL (for example, how long a resolver should consider a negative result for a subdomain to be valid before retrying). Aspera recommends setting this to 10 seconds (as shown by A in the following image).
If you want to purchase and register a domain with the same service:
- Route 53: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/CreatingNewDNS.html.
Create IAM Policies and IAM Roles.
IAM policies and roles assigns permissions to ATC Manager and its nodes, enabling them to manage instances and access your S3 buckets. For detailed instructions, see Creating IAM Policies and Creating IAM Roles.
Create an Amazon RDS database.
The ATC Manager image provided by Aspera includes a database, but Aspera recommends that you deploy ATC Manager with the Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS). When ATC Manager is configured to use an RDS database, it automatically backs up the state store data to that database. For detailed instructions, see Creating the RDS Database.

Once you have reviewed all the requirements, you may proceed to launch the Cluster Manager image by following the instructions found in Launching the ATC Manager AMI.

Note: If you are using the AWS Auto Scaling service and want to run the Cluster Manager in a private VPC, follow the instructions in Running the Cluster Manager in a Private VPC.