AWS Nonprofits Technical Hub

Amazon Lightsail is the easiest way to get started with Amazon Web Services (AWS) if you just need instances (virtual private servers). Lightsail includes everything you need to launch your project quickly—instances, managed databases, SSD-based storage, backups (snapshots), data transfer, domain name system (DNS) management, static IPs, and load balancers—for a low, predictable price. Launch and configure a WordPress instance in Lightsail.

Amazon Lightsail is the easiest way to run a WordPress site. Migrate an existing WordPress blog to Lightsail.

There are two ways to install SSL certificate; one option is attaching an SSL certificate to your Lightsail load balancer, and the other option is using Let's Encrypt. You can find more detailed information about both options below.

A Lightsail load balancer enables better performance from your web applications by distributing inbound web traffic across your Lightsail instances in multiple Availability Zones. Attaching an SSL certificate to your Lightsail load balancer encrypts traffic between your browser and web server for an extra layer of security. Create a Lightsail load balancer with an SSL/TLS certificate to use with Lightsail instances.

Amazon Lightsail makes it simple to secure your websites and applications with SSL/TLS using Lightsail load balancers. However, using a Lightsail load balancer might not generally be the right choice. Perhaps your site doesn't need the scalability or fault tolerance load balancers provide, or maybe you're optimizing for cost. In the latter case, you might consider using Let's Encrypt to obtain a no-cost SSL certificate. If so, that's no problem. You can integrate those certificates with Lightsail instances. Use Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates with your WordPress instance in Amazon Lightsail.

With the AWS for WordPress plugin, you can set up several AWS services, including Amazon CloudFront. With CloudFront, you can provide visitors to your WordPress website an accelerated viewing experience with content cached in edge locations around the world. When visitors come to your website, CloudFront routes them to the edge location that provides the lowest latency for a faster, more reliable experience. You can also use the plugin to set up other AWS services like Amazon Polly and Amazon Translate. Get started with the AWS for WordPress plugin.

You can enable email on your WordPress instance in Lightsail. Configure the SMTP service in the Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES). Then activate and configure the WP Mail SMTP plugin on your instance. After email is enabled, your WordPress administrators can request password resets for their user profiles and will be sent email notifications for blog posts, website updates, and other plugin messages. This guide shows you how to enable email on your WordPress instance in Lightsail using Amazon SES. Enable email on your WordPress instance in Lightsail.

Before you attach instances to your Lightsail load balancer, you need to evaluate your application's configuration. For example, load balancers often work better when the data tier is separated from the rest of the application. This topic tells you about each Lightsail instance and makes recommendations about whether to load balance (or horizontally scale) and how to best configure your application. Configure your Lightsail instances for load balancing.

In this tutorial, you will register a new domain name for your website. You will then connect that domain name through the DNS to a currently running Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance (such as a WebApp, or website running WordPress, Apache, NGINX, IIS, or other website platform). If you already have a domain name registered, do step 1 and then refer to your domain registrar’s documentation for how to set the DNS record for your new site. See how to register a domain name.

To learn about the steps for moving a domain hosted with another registrar to AWS, please visit this website: Transfer a domain to AWS.

To learn about the steps for moving a domain hosted with another registrar to AWS, please visit this website: Transfer a domain to AWS.

You can use Organizations with Lightsail. Organizations enables you to perform account management activities at scale by consolidating multiple AWS accounts into a single organization. Consolidating accounts simplifies how you use other AWS services. You can leverage the multi-account management services available in Organizations with select AWS services including Lightsail to perform tasks on all accounts that are members of your organization. See AWS services that you can use with AWS Organizations.

If you think your architecture warrants additional Elastic IP addresses, you can request a quota increase directly from the Service Quotas console. Learn about elastic IP addresses on Amazon EC2.

The AWS Nonprofit Credit Program provides access to AWS Promotional Credit, helping to offset costs associated with implementing cloud-based solutions. This helps nonprofits meet mission goals without upfront investment in physical infrastructure. Learn about the AWS Nonprofit Credit Program.

AWS also offers the IMAGINE Grant Program to registered nonprofit organizations in the United States who are using cloud technology to solve the world's most pressing challenges. Our goal is to empower nonprofit organizations to prioritize technology as a mission-critical component of their projects and provide support for organizations pursuing technology-driven goals. As part of the program, we are seeking proposals for pilot projects, proofs of concepts, or existing programs that utilize technology in a new or expanded way. Learn about the AWS IMAGINE Grant Program.

There are three types of cloud data storage: object storage, file storage, and block storage. Each offers their own advantages and have their own use cases:

1. Object storage - Applications developed in the cloud often take advantage of object storage's vast scalability and metadata characteristics. Object storage solutions like Amazon S3 are ideal for building modern applications from scratch that require scale and flexibility, and can also be used to import existing data stores for analytics, backup, or archive.
2. File storage - Some applications need to access shared files and require a file system. This type of storage is often supported with a network attached storage (NAS) server. File storage solutions like Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) are ideal for use cases like large content repositories, development environments, media stores, or user home directories.
3. Block storage - Other enterprise applications like databases or ERP systems often require dedicated, low latency storage for each host. This is analogous to direct-attached storage (DAS) or a Storage Area Network (SAN). Block-based cloud storage solutions like Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) are provisioned with each virtual server and offer the ultra low latency required for high performance workloads.

AWS offers archive storage solutions for long term retention, compliance, and digital preservation. Amazon S3 provides you with virtually unlimited scale, 99.999999999% durability, and the highest standards of data security, all with lower costs and faster access times than on-premises tape storage. The Amazon S3 Glacier storage classes are purpose-built for data archiving, providing you with the highest performance, most retrieval flexibility, and the lowest cost archive storage in the cloud. You can now choose from three archive storage classes optimized for different access patterns and storage duration. Amazon S3 Glacier storage classes deliver cost-optimized archive storage, whether you need to access your archive data quarterly, annually, or somewhere in between.

Customers can store infrequently accessed digital media assets in highly durable and massively scalable storage solutions at very low costs. They can easily move data from archival to distribution when needed, and extract insights by easily accessing adjacent AWS services such as AWS Elemental Media Services, AWS Lambda, Amazon Elastic Transcoder, and Amazon Rekognition, to maximize the value of data and generate top line value. Modernize data archiving.

Amazon S3 offers a range of storage classes that you can choose from based on the data access, resiliency, and cost requirements of your workloads. Amazon S3 storage classes are purpose-built to provide the lowest cost storage for different access patterns. Amazon S3 storage classes are ideal for virtually any use case, including those with demanding performance needs, data residency requirements, unknown or changing access patterns, or archival storage.

The Amazon S3 storage classes include Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering for automatic cost savings for data with unknown or changing access patterns, Amazon S3 Standard for frequently accessed data, Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA) and Amazon S3 One Zone-Infrequent Access (S3 One Zone-IA) for less frequently accessed data, S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval for archive data that needs immediate access, S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval (formerly S3 Glacier) for rarely accessed long-term data that does not require immediate access, and Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive (S3 Glacier Deep Archive) for long-term archive and digital preservation with retrieval in hours at the lowest cost storage in the cloud. If you have data residency requirements that can’t be met by an existing AWS Region, you can use the Amazon S3 Outposts storage class to store your Amazon S3 data on premises. Amazon S3 also offers capabilities to manage your data throughout its lifecycle. Once an S3 Lifecycle policy is set, your data will automatically transfer to a different storage class without any changes to your application.

Learn more about Amazon S3 storage classes »

The Amazon S3 Glacier storage classes are purpose-built for data archiving, providing you with the highest performance, most retrieval flexibility, and the lowest cost archive storage in the cloud. All Amazon S3 Glacier storage classes provide virtually unlimited scalability and are designed for 99.999999999% (11 nines) of data durability. The Amazon S3 Glacier storage classes deliver options for the fastest access to your archive data and the lowest-cost archive storage in the cloud. You can choose from three archive storage classes optimized for different access patterns and storage duration.

Learn more about Amazon S3 Glacier storage classes »

Customers can use AWS to run sensitive workloads regulated under the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). If you plan to include Protected Health Information (as defined by HIPAA) on AWS services, you must first accept the AWS Business Associate Addendum (AWS BAA). You can review, accept, and check the status of your AWS BAA through a self-service portal available in AWS Artifact. Any AWS service can be used with a healthcare application, but only services covered by the AWS BAA can be used to store, process, and transmit Protected Health Information under HIPAA.

Common architecting strategies for HIPAA »

View current list of services covered by the AWS BAA »

By default, all Amazon S3 resources—buckets, objects, and related subresources (for example,  lifecycle configuration and website configuration)—are private. Only the resource owner, the AWS account that created it, can access the resource. The resource owner can optionally grant access permissions to others by writing an access policy. Amazon S3 offers access policy options broadly categorized as resource-based policies and user policies. Access policies that you attach to your resources (buckets and objects) are referred to as resource-based policies. For example, bucket policies and access point policies are resource-based policies. You can also attach access policies to users in your account. These are called user policies. You can choose to use resource-based policies, user policies, or some combination of these to manage permissions to your Amazon S3 resources. You can also use access control lists (ACLs) to grant basic read and write permissions to other AWS accounts.

Learn more about Identity and access management in Amazon S3 »

The AWS Nonprofit Credit Program provides access to AWS Promotional Credit, helping to offset costs associated with implementing cloud-based solutions. This helps nonprofits meet mission goals without upfront investment in physical infrastructure. Learn about the AWS Nonprofit Credit Program.

AWS offers the Imagine Grant Program to registered nonprofit organizations in the United States who are using cloud technology to solve the world's most pressing challenges. Our goal is to empower nonprofit organizations to prioritize technology as a mission-critical component of their projects and provide support for organizations pursuing technology-driven goals. As part of the program, we are seeking proposals for pilot projects, proofs of concepts, or existing programs that utilize technology in a new or expanded way. Learn about the AWS Imagine Grant Program.