Amazon Cloudfront S3 Static Website

Static website hosting with AWS CloudFront and S3.

01

S3 Deployment

YouDoPhoto is integrated with the AWS CLI. This synchronises your local build folder with your S3 bucket. Build a whole site or a single page and deploy in seconds with a single click. 

02

CloudFront

Setup CloudFront distribution, cache invalidation, SSL certificates and image metadata for maximum performance on desktop and mobile. Create 301 redirect rules for updated content.

03

IAM and Route 53

Simplify your deployment with AWS Route 53 integration to update site DNS settings for your domain and SSL certificate validation.

Deploying a Static Site to S3?

Creating, building and deploying a photo gallery manually to S3 and CloudFront is straight forward enough. What about updating and maintaining!

Hosting a photo gallery on Amazon AWS utilises three services. Amazon S3 is the storage service think of this as a cloud-based hard disk. Amazon route 53 is the domain name registrar which is linked to S3, think of this as a telephone exchange redirecting your calls. Lastly there is Amazon CloudFront which is a cache to speed up the website, think of this is putting the most popular photographs at the top of the pile.

YouDoPhoto  integrates with Amazon AWS and sets up these services with a few clicks (you will need Amazon account).

YouDoPhoto Not only helps with the setting up of your photo gallery we also automate the process if you update the site and add additional photos or pages. Each time the photo gallery is updated, built and deployed to Amazon YouDoPhoto instructs AWS that new content is available and the cache is cleared and the storage is updated with old images deleted.

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AWS Static Site Hosting

AWS hosting consists of two products. CloudFront is the CDN and S3 is the storage. CloudFront is part of AWS always free option whereas S3 storage has a 12 month free period. 

The AWS platform is the most comprehensive of all clouds and includes identity management, reverse proxy and a domain name registry along with Lamda serverless functions.

Route 53 plus the domain name registry simplify the management of domains and the generation of SSL certificates. AWS static sites are able to work with either the AWS or third party domain name registry.

YouDoPhoto is integrated with AWS web server logs for analytics as an alternative to JavaScript further speeding up page load times.

  • Domain name registry.
  • Route 53 and SSL.
  • Web Server Logs.
  • Reverse Proxy.
AWS Setup
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S3 Storage

S3 bucket storage incorporates static site hosting with an Amazon S3 endpoint (domain) and W3C Web format web server logs included free of charge. Although S3 is object storage the control panel incorporates an easy-to-use file explorer allowing fine-grained control of your static assets.

The S3 free plan includes a generous monthly limit for data transfer of 1TB with no maximum file size. After the 12 month free period the storage charges are so low that for small business or personal websites the costs are negligible. Combination of S3 for storage and the CloudFront CDN can be complex to setup as they are separate products. However YouDoPhoto is integrated with AWS CLI to make this process as simple as possible.

YouDoPhoto builds a static version of the site locally before deploying using the AWS Node.js CLI to synchronise the local build folder with S3 storage. 

  • Free plan up to 1TB per month.
  • Maximum storage 5GB
  • No max file size.
  • Public or private access.
S3 Bucket
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CloudFront CDN.

Build and deploy a static site to AWS CloudFront. YouDoPhoto headless CMS is integrated with AWS CloudFront for quick and easy  static site hosting.

1

AWS Node.js CLI

The AWS API uses Node.js and NPM. YouDoPhoto includes a single click install of AWS javascript sdk. Initialise a new CloudFront distribution with provision of SSL and S3 storage in a single step.

2

Build and Deploy

After your site has been built using the YouDoPhoto static site generator a single click deploy to S3 the AWS CLI synchronises your local build folder with S3 blob storage. Before deployment we check the base URL matches the CloudFront. 

3

301 Redirects and Cache

After upload files to S3 the CloudFront distribution cache is refreshed and the updated content is available on the live site. Simultaneously YouDoPhoto updates the S3 bucket with any 301 redirects created for outdated content.

CloudFront

How We Do It?

We make your setting up AWS stress-free for you to have the perfect control.

01

AWS S3

Setup and enable an AWS S3 storage bucket and synchronise the contents of your website to the cloud.  When you upload, only changed files are uploaded keeping upload times to a minimum.

02

Certificate Manager SSL

Create a free SSL to use with your website and attach this to the CloudFront distribution.

03

Route53 DNS

Using route 53 for DNS is optional. However if you are a route 53 user and your domain name is registered with Amazon then you can update the DNS settings when you create your CloudFront distribution.

04

CloudFront

The CloudFront content delivery network is the key component that makes static sites so fast. Automatically create a CloudFront distribution and link it to your S3  bucket to host your static site. CloudFront origin cache validation every time you deploy.