Amazon Web Services
AWS provides cloud hosting services at the IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) level. Leading rivals in that area include the Google Compute Engine and Microsoft Azure offers.
I won't go into the war between these competitors (and others). Being an AWS user since 2014, I am proficient enough with the AWS platform to design a reliable and secure "end-user" setup. Competing offers can provide the equivalent of what I'll show here but I'm not proficient enough with them...
IaaS means you can create your virtual environment in the cloud, hosted within AWS infrastructure, "exactly" the way you want : networks, subnets, private or public, in multiple geographic locations, with servers and databases of all sizes and types, with or without Internet access, network traffic filtering, etc...
"exactly the way you want" implies some measure of "do it yourself" and entails a not-so-easy learning curve to master the ins and outs of the AWS platform (just like all other IaaS providers). So we'll only use a simple (but secure) setup.
AWS uses a "pay as you go" economic model, and provides a nice 1 year "Free Tier" + some on-going goodies after the first year.
To become an AWS user you have to create an account (even if only to use the Free Tier).
How to create an AWS account
Go check and follow the process here : https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/create-and-activate-aws-account/
Or simply click "Create Free Account" at the bottom of the main AWS page at : https://aws.amazon.com
Also here is a link to a recent enough video showing both :
new AWS account creation
first IAM user creation in the new account
AWS Account creation videos : https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=create+aws+account
AWS Free Tier
The AWS "Free Tier" provides a new subscriber with everything needed to run this solution free of charge for 1 year.
AWS potential costs : how to avoid them ?
It is extremely easy to create I.T. "resources" on AWS with a few clicks...which implies that you may try things out and not check if they remain within the Free Tier bounds.
On the other hand, associated with the "pay as you go" pricing, it offers the opportunity to test high-end configurations for a short time at a low cost without a large upfront investment - provided you remember to destroy ("terminate") these resources after that, to avoid ongoing costs.
So keep this in mind :
the Free Tier bounds are specified, detailed by service, at : https://aws.amazon.com/free
always check the cost structure for any service you may want to test (free part/billable part/invoicing criteria)
ALL pricing info is available per service, or from the "umbrella" pricing page : https://aws.amazon.com/pricing/
Each AWS Region (geographical area) has it's own costs. From what i saw, South America is currently (mid 2019) more expensive than other regions. You may take this into account when choosing the place where you'll run your own server
Periodically check your month-to-date actuals and month-total estimated values in your Billing Dashboard in the AWS Management Console. They are updated at intervals of 6 to 8 hours :
Minimizing AWS costs when you step outside the Free Tier
1 year after account creation, some bonuses from the AWS Free Tier expire, including those that enabled running our proposed setup entirely for free. So the cost will mandatorily become >$0 /month.
However this solution is designed to be lightweight, and that reflects in it's potential running costs when NOT operating free of charge :
the total permanent volume of S3 sorage is around 50KB, which should remain virtually free (maybe $0.01 if you have A LOT of startups/boots in a month ?)
with the "destroy when not used" strategy, and a minimal virtual disk size (8GB), you should extremely reduce both EC2 and EBS costs (EC2=Elastic Compute Cloud : your CPU(s)+RAM, and EBS=Elastic Block Store : your virtual disk(s))
OpenVPN requirements are extremely low : you can run it with the cheapest EC2 instance type
Overall, WITHOUT the Free Tier goodies, you should be able to run your VPN server for 50 Hours per month for less than $0.5 /month and a permanently running (24x7) server should cost $2.5 to $10 depending on the world region and the options you choose.
Change your Machine Instance Type
After you are out of the AWS Free Tier, you can choose a smaller (= cheaper) "instance type" than the one you have used for free during 1 year : downsizing from t2.micro or t3.micro to t2.nano or t3.nano.
Use "Spot" instances
Check the available Spot Instances offer from AWS for your AWS Region : it generally gives the lowest possible price point.
One of my OpenVPN servers is a "Spot" t3.nano running 24x7 for <2.5$/month.
Mobile Management App
This is something I like : when on the move I can use the mobile app to check statuses or start/stop AWS servers etc...
It does not provide everything you can do with the main AWS Management Console, though.
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