Deploy your project

After you have created your Sitefinity CMS project, you must move your database to the Amazon cloud. For more information about importing your database in Amazon RDS, see Importing and Exporting SQL Server Data.

Sitefinity CMS runs on EC2 instances that have Windows Server, IIS, and .NET installed. You must deploy the web application and attach it to the appropriate application pool. You must also configure the user permissions.

Because the instances have standard Windows Server installation, for more information about configurations, see System requirements and Run projects on IIS. 

After you make the configuration on one instance, you can copy or share the site's folder to the rest of the instances.

When you upload your site on more than one EC2 instances or you want to scale the instances, you must prepare the communication infrastructure to transmit messages between the nodes. For example, to communicate cache invalidation. Sitefinity CMS uses Redis message sender that you must configure for NLB communication in Amazon.

Perform the following:

1. Copy the connection string from ElastiCache.
   When you create the ElastiCache Cluster, use its node endpoint address and port.
   For example, myredisCluster-001.jejod.0001.euc1.cache.amazonaws.com:6379
2. In Sitefinity CMS backend, navigate to Administration » Settings » Advanced » System » LoadBalancing » Redis Settings » Connection String.

   EXAMPLE:  myredisCluster-001.jejod.0001.euc1.cache.amazonaws.com:6379

3. To be able to use Redis from different client applications, enter the copied connection string and specify a prefix for all messages from this site.
4. Save your changes.

NOTE: If the ElastiCache server (Redis) is not available or not configured properly, you may experience delays in Sitefinity CMS.

If you want a high availability solution or you want to spread the load of the site between different server instances, you must use a load balancer to distribute the requests.

PREREQUISITES: You must have a valid Sitefinity CMS license with a Load Balancing extension.

In order to create a load balancer, perform the following:

1. Go to Amazon Services and select EC2. 
2. Select Load Balancing » Load balancers and create a new one following the wizard. 
3. Select the appropriate security group where the EC2 instances are placed. 
4. Configure the health check to a page in your site.
   For example, / for the root of the site.
5. Select the EC2 Instances that you want to balance.
6. Set Tags and create the load balancer.