This page last changed on Mar 08, 2009 by alui.

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Conceptual Overview

Elastic Bamboo is a feature in Bamboo that allows you to utilise computing resources from the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) to run builds. Elastic Bamboo uses a remote agent AMI (Amazon Machine Image) to create instances of remote agents in the Amazon EC2. Builds can be run on these 'elastic agents' in the same way that builds are run non-elastic agents.

Elastic Bamboo Conceptual Overview

A build can be run on an elastic agent, provided that the capabilities of the elastic agent meet the requirements of the build. Bamboo will assign the relevant build to an available elastic agent from the build queue automatically, in the same way that builds are assigned to non-elastic agents. The elastic agent must already be running for a build to be assigned to it.

Please note, Bamboo does not automatically start elastic agents to meet build demand.

An elastic agent is started by creating a new instance of an elastic image. Creating this new elastic instance automatically runs an elastic agent process in the instance. The agent inherits the capabilities of the image it was created from. Only one agent process can be run in an instance, although multiple instances can be created from the same image.

Once a build has completed the build results are made available, as per any other build. The elastic agent and instance will continue to run until they are manually shut down. Shutting down an elastic instance will terminate the agent, not take it offline. However, Bamboo will store historical information about the terminated elastic agent, such as the builds it has run.

An Amazon Web Services (AWS) account is required to use Elastic Bamboo. Elastic Bamboo Costs are charged by Amazon, separate to Bamboo licence costs, as Elastic Bamboo is powered by Amazon resources.

Key Terms

Elastic Image

An elastic image is an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) that is stored in the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). An elastic image is used to create elastic instances, which in turn create elastic agents. Conceptually, the elastic image can be considered to be the boot hard disk that contains the operating system and software run on your elastic instances.

You can only associate one elastic image with a Bamboo server at a time. One default shared image is maintained by Atlassian in the Amazon S3, and is available to all Elastic Bamboo users.

Elastic Instance

An elastic instance is an instance of an elastic image. An elastic instance is created whenever an image is started. An image can be started multiple times, creating multiple instances. Each time an elastic instance is started, one elastic agent is created.

Conceptually, an elastic instance can be thought of as a computer. Elastic agent processes are run on this computer and the elastic image is the boot hard disk. Please note however, that elastic instances are temporary and transient. Any changes that an elastic instance makes to the boot hard drive (e.g. agent log file) are not persisted when the instance is shut down. Any customisations to the instance itself will also be lost when the it is shut down.

Elastic Agent

An elastic agent is a remote agent that runs in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). An elastic agent process runs in an instance of an Elastic Bamboo elastic image. An elastic agent inherits its capabilities from the elastic image that it was created from.

Setting Up Elastic Bamboo

If you would like to set up Elastic Bamboo for your Bamboo installation, please read Getting Started with Elastic Bamboo. This document guides you through the initial configuration of Elastic Bamboo and running your first build.


Document generated by Confluence on Mar 09, 2009 17:06