AMIs used by Existing VPC CloudFormation template don't allow some instance types

[medavisjr]

Note: I'm crossposting this here, as it doesn't look like the Aerospike team is maintaining their CloudFormation repo where I originally posted this issue.

There are some serious issues with how the Marketplace products for these Aerospike deployments have been configured and are being maintained (or not being maintained?). Essentially, Aerospike has one product cross-contaminated with another product's AMIs, and it's resulting in bad experiences for users. My hope is that the Quick Start team can work with Aerospike to resolve these issues, for the sake of both parties as well as their mutual customers.

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The AMIs currently used in the Existing VPC CloudFormation template don't allow certain instance types that are reported as enabled for use in the AWS Marketplace page for Aerospike Database Enterprise Edition.

At least these instance types are not enabled on the AMI, maybe more:

• c3
• c4
• c5
• i2
• i3
• i3en

The problem seems to be that the AWS Marketplace CloudFormation template for "Aerospike Database Enterprise Edition" points to the AMIs for "Aerospike Database" instead of its own AMIs. You can see this in the AMIs in the "Aerospike Database Enterprise Edition" CF template:

Mappings:
  AWSAMIRegionMap:
    AMI:
      AEROSPIKEAMI: aerospike-amazonlinux2-20220508100353
    us-east-1:
      AEROSPIKEAMI: ami-05f5709c7c092d892
    us-east-2:
      AEROSPIKEAMI: ami-0ded916282885082d
    us-west-1:
      AEROSPIKEAMI: ami-0d3b55865039748fd
[...]

us-east-1 mapping uses ami-05f5709c7c092d892 when it should be using ami-021f94397f9b7296a, from what I can tell.

This results in the below error in the ASG that the CloudFormation template creates if the user doesn't happen to choose an instance type that's supported by "Aerospike Database" Marketplace's AMI image.

In this case, I was trying to launch an i3en instance type using the CloudFormation template, and it failed because the Marketplace AMI being used doesn't support it.

Launching a new EC2 instance. Status Reason: The instance configuration for this AWS Marketplace product is not supported. Please see the AWS Marketplace site for more information about supported instance types, regions, and operating systems. Launching EC2 instance failed.

This whole kerfluffle with the Marketplace products also causes a separate but closely related problem in that the ASG can't even attempt to launch the instance until the account subscribes to the "Aerospike Database" Marketplace product, even if they're already subscribed to the "Aerospike Database Enterprise Edition" Marketplace product:

Launching a new EC2 instance. Status Reason: In order to use this AWS Marketplace product you need to accept terms and subscribe. To do so please visit https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp?sku=ekg8c7lctclzvufhp0gzzl8ro. Launching EC2 instance failed.

[sourabh3b]

Thanks for opening the detailed issue, the only supported instance types are ones mentioned in AllowedValues based on some best practices and we try to keep supported instances types updated in QS. I will be reviewing the instance types in all places ( CFTs, AMIs and Marketplace listing) and see if there's some change needed or not.

Regarding the ami-mapping, they are coming from marketplace, the AMI Aerospike provides to Marketplace get modified as it goes through some AWS internal security audits/scanning and hence we se different AMIs ( AWSAMIRegionMap) . The right AMIs are the the ones which are found from AWS marketplace and not from CFT, althought CFT AMIs should also work as they are copies of original AMIs but os supportability issue could occur in some instances which you mentioned. We will try to make this clear in docs on finding and using right AMIs. I would suggest to try only the supported instances and let us know if you have any special need for any specific instance types which is currently not supported.

We ideally don't need two listing in marketplace, will check with AWS marketplace/quickstart team and see how we can improve overall user experience. thanks