Guide to each field

Subscription on AWS Marketplace

Each imaxe product is distributed as an AMI (machine image) published on AWS Marketplace. For CloudFormation to be able to boot an instance with that image, your AWS account needs to be subscribed to the product beforehand.

Subscribing is free and is done once per account and product. You only pay for usage: the AMI's software fee (if it has one) plus the AWS resources you create. From the form, the «Open AWS Marketplace» button takes you to the selected product's page.

Product

The software stack you want to deploy (Tomcat, Moodle, Odoo, etc.). It's the field that governs the rest of the form: changing it adjusts the recommended instance type, whether the database section appears and which optional improvements make sense for that product.

AWS region Required

The AWS data center where the whole stack will be created. It affects latency for your users, price (varies by region) and AMI availability.

• Choose the region closest to your end users.
• For users in Spain, eu-west-3 (Paris), eu-central-1 (Frankfurt) or eu-south-2 (Spain) offer low latency.
• The SSH key pair and the VPC/subnet IDs must belong to this same region.

Stack name Required

Identifies this deployment in your CloudFormation console. By default it's filled in as imaxe-<producto>, but you can change it.

Rules: start with a letter and use only letters, numbers and hyphens (between 3 and 128 characters). No spaces or accents allowed.

Instance type Required

The size of the EC2 machine — its CPU and memory. The default value is sized for the chosen product; increase it if you expect heavy traffic or lower it to save money in test environments.

• t3.small / t3.medium — general purpose, bursty. A good option to get started.
• t3.large / m5.large — more memory, sustained load.
• c5.large — compute-oriented (more CPU per euro).

SSH key pair Required

The name of an EC2 key pair that already exists in this region. It's the key you'll use to connect to the instance over SSH.

They're created in the AWS console, under EC2 › Network and security › Key pairs. Here you must type the exact name of the pair (not the key itself). If you don't have one yet, create it before launching.

SSH access CIDR Required

The range of IP addresses allowed to connect over SSH (port 22), in CIDR notation x.x.x.x/n. It has no default value on purpose: it's a security decision you have to make yourself.

• A single IP (recommended): your public IP with /32, e.g. 203.0.113.10/32.
• An office network: e.g. 203.0.113.0/24 (256 addresses).
• Any IP: 0.0.0.0/0 opens SSH to the whole internet — for testing only, never in production.

Root disk and monitoring Optional

Root disk (GB): size of the boot EBS gp3 volume. The default value is enough for most deployments; increase it if you're going to store a lot of data on the instance itself.

Detailed monitoring: sends metrics to CloudWatch every 1 minute instead of every 5. Useful for fine diagnostics, but it has a small additional cost per instance.

Create a new VPC

On by default and recommended. The stack creates its own virtual private cloud (VPC) — with the name you give it and as many public subnets as availability zones you want to use, plus internet gateway and route table — ready to use and isolated from your other resources. With two or more subnets you can add a load balancer or Multi-AZ RDS later.

Turn it off only if you need to deploy inside a network you already have (for internal policies, connectivity with other systems, etc.).

VPC ID Required if you don't create a VPC

The identifier of your existing VPC. It starts with vpc- followed by a hexadecimal string, e.g. vpc-0a1b2c3d4e5f6. You'll find it in the VPC console.

Subnet ID Required if you don't create a VPC

The public subnet within that VPC where the instance will be placed. It starts with subnet-. It must have internet access (a route to an internet gateway) for the application to be reachable.

Which ports does the security group open?

Only those declared by the AMI of the product you picked, each with the reach it deserves: SSH from the admin CIDR you enter; HTTP and HTTPS to the internet only if the product serves web; and service ports (a cache, an agent, a collector) restricted to the network block, never open to the internet. With an existing VPC you provide that block in “CIDR allowed to reach the service”.

Domain Optional

If you leave it empty, you'll access the application via the public IP that AWS assigns to the instance. If you enter a domain (e.g. miapp.empresa.com), after launching the stack you'll need to create a DNS record pointing that domain to the stack's IP.

Email for the certificate Optional

Only applies if you've entered a domain. It's the email used to automatically issue and renew a free TLS certificate from Let's Encrypt, so your site works over HTTPS. You'll receive expiry notices at that address.

Where does the database live?

• Local database (default) — runs on the instance itself. Simpler and cheaper; ideal for getting started, small environments or testing. The backup depends on the instance.
• Managed RDS — the AWS database service, separate from the instance, with automatic backups, patching and an optional high-availability mode. Recommended for production.

RDS instance size Optional

The capacity (CPU and memory) of the managed database. db.t3.small is enough to start; move up to db.t3.medium or db.m5.large depending on the load.

Multi-AZ Optional

Keeps a replica of the database in a second availability zone. If the primary fails, AWS fails over automatically with no data loss. It adds fault tolerance but doubles the cost of the database.

Backup to S3 Optional

Schedules a daily backup of the data to an Amazon S3 bucket, with 7-day retention. A simple, cheap safety net against deletions or failures.

Email for SNS alerts Optional

If you fill it in, the stack creates an Amazon SNS topic and subscribes you to receive email notices about the deployment's status: failures, high usage or backup results. You'll need to confirm the subscription from the first email AWS sends. Leave it empty to receive no alerts.

How the estimated cost is calculated

The launcher's «Estimated monthly cost» panel adds up an approximation of the AWS resources your configuration creates, at on-demand pricing and assuming continuous operation (~730 hours a month) in the selected region. It's meant to compare options, not as a bill.