Why the agent fleet runs on Lightsail

The agent fleet runs on Amazon Lightsail, Amazon's simplest way to rent a server. I wanted cheap, fixed-price computers that can talk to each other privately with no setup, and that is most of what Lightsail is.

Lightsail is the no-frills option: you pick a size, you get a computer. It does less than Amazon's full-power service (EC2) on purpose, and for a small set of machines that run all the time, doing less is the point.

One fixed size, one flat price

Each Lightsail plan packs processing power, memory, storage and a monthly traffic allowance into a single price (plans, pricing). The model gateway runs the small plan: 2 processors, 2 GB of memory, 60 GB of storage. I do not tune each dial separately or track what the network traffic costs. I pick a size and I know the bill.

The private network comes free

This is what sold me. Every Lightsail machine sits on Amazon's own network, and machines in the same region reach each other privately with nothing to set up (networking). There is no network to design and no cabling to lay. Putting the boxes in one region is the whole job. Each one also gets a fixed public address and basic domain setup (features).

The lock is only on the front door

Lightsail's firewall guards the public entrance to each machine (firewall). Traffic between my own machines in the same region takes the private path and never touches that firewall. So the gateway talks to the agents out of sight, and the public side stays closed down to a single door.

The honest limit

Lightsail is simple because it does less. The plans come in fixed sizes, so you take the balance of memory and processing power on offer rather than setting your own. Its private network also connects only to Amazon's default setup in your region, not to anything custom (the details). If I outgrow that, the next step is the full-power service, where I would rebuild by hand the network Lightsail gave me for free.

The bottom line

For a handful of small machines that need to talk privately and cost a known amount each month, Lightsail is the right starting point. It gave the fleet a private network and a predictable bill, and left me nothing to set up that I did not want to.