Zeus Traffic Manager and Zeus Load Balancer are now available on EC2 as Amazon Machine Images (AMIs). An AMI is a template from which EC2 virtual machines, called instances, can be created. An instance is essentially a Zeus virtual appliance packaged for use on EC2.

There are three main steps to getting a traffic manager up and running in EC2:

1. Sign up to use one or more Zeus AMIs - covered in this article
2. Launch an instance of your chosen AMI
3. Configure the new traffic manager

If you have already signed up to one of the Zeus AMIs, please skip ahead to the next article in the series, which explains how to launch an instance.

Subscribe to a Zeus Traffic Manager or Zeus Load Balancer AMI

The first step to using Zeus on EC2 is to subscribe to one of the available AMIs.

Use your web browser to visit http://www.zeus.com/ec2. Select the Zeus Traffic Manager or Zeus Load Balancer version your require. There are three versions of each, with different levels of CPU, networking and I/O performance. When you are happy with your selection, click the "Buy" button to proceed.

Sign in to Amazon Web Services

The rest of the sign up process is handled by Amazon. You will be redirected to Amazon's website, which will ask you to log in.

• If you already have an Amazon Web Services account, enter your e-mail address and password here.
• If you have an Amazon.com account, you can enter the e-mail address and password for that account here. Amazon will guide you through the process of registering the account for AWS.
• If you do not have an AWS account or an Amazon.com account, enter your e-mail address and select the "I am a new user" radio button. Amazon will guide you through the process of setting up your account.

Place order

Before you place your order, Amazon will show you a summary of the charges for running the AMI you selected. Usage charges in the US and EU regions may differ. Review the usage charges and click "Place your order" to continue.

Register with Zeus

The last step in the sign up process is to register your purchase with Zeus. This will allow you to purchase technical support from us. Enter your company name and a contact e-mail address and press Submit. When you register, we will assign you an account number which you can use if you need to contact us. You must have an account number to purchase technical support.

This step of the sign up process will also tell you the AMI IDs and manifest names of the AMIs you have signed up to use. Make a note of these details - you will need them when you come to launch a new Zeus instance.

What next?

You are now signed up to use Zeus traffic management software on Amazon EC2. The next step is to start up an instance of the software and configure it. To find out how, read the next article in the series, which explains how to launch an instance.

Euan Harris [Zeus Dev Team] 29 October 2009