Getting started with Bitbucket Server and AWS
This page provides an overview of the options available for running self-managed Bitbucket Data Center and Bitbucket Server instances on Amazon Web Services.
Running Bitbucket on Amazon Web Services (AWS) gives you scalable computing capacity without the need to invest in hardware up front, while retaining control over where and how your code is hosted within your organisation.
To this end, Atlassian provides:
- a reference deployment in the form of an AWS Quick Start, which launches, configures, and runs Bitbucket Data Center and required services in a matter of minutes, using AWS best practices for security and availability
- an Amazon CloudFormation template that can be customised for different deployment needs while keeping the process automated
- an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) that can be used for running Bitbucket on EC2 as an application server building block in more heavily customised deployments
- tools and guidelines for manually deploying, backing up, restoring, sizing, and administering Bitbucket Server and Bitbucket Data Center instances on AWS
Quick Start guide
Launching Bitbucket Data Center from an AWS CloudFormation template
The AWS CloudFormation template in the Quick Start is a great place to start if you wish to customise your deployment beyond the parameters offered by default. See the the Quick Start guide for more information.
Performance guidelines
To get the best performance out of your Bitbucket deployment in AWS, it's important to not under-provision your instance's CPU, memory, or I/O resources. Whether you choose to deploy Bitbucket Data Center, which offers performance gains via horizontal scaling, or a single node Bitbucket Server instance, we have specific recommendations on choosing AWS EC2 and EBS settings for best performance per node.
If you are using the CloudFormation template, these settings are already included. Otherwise, please see Recommendations for running Bitbucket in AWS.
Backing up Bitbucket in AWS
Atlassian also provides utilities suitable for backing up and restoring your Bitbucket instance using native AWS snapshots. This provides a number of advantages:
- Performance: AWS snapshots occur asynchronously resulting in shorter backup downtime for your instances
- Durability: The underlying storage of AWS snapshots is in Amazon S3, which is stored redundantly and with high durability
- Availability: AWS snapshots are available across an entire AWS region, and are available to restore even in the event of an outage affecting an entire Availabilty Zone (AZ)
To learn more about how to back up and restore a Bitbucket instance in AWS, see Using Bitbucket DIY Backup in AWS.
Administering Bitbucket in AWS
See Administering Bitbucket Server in AWS for information about performing administration tasks on a Bitbucket instance within AWS, including:
- configuring variables when launching Bitbucket in AWS
- maintaining, resizing, upgrading, migrating, and customizing your Bitbucket deployment in AWS
- additional details about the components within the Bitbucket AMI
Securing Bitbucket within AWS
AWS is accessed over the public Internet, so it is important to apply appropriate security measures when running Bitbucket Server in AWS. See Best practices for securing Bitbucket in AWS for security guidance on a range of security topics, including Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Security Groups, and SSL.