Connect to an Amazon EC2 instance from an ios application - ios

Question

I am trying to make an ios application that uses Amazon Web Services as its backend. I have an MySQL database in RDS and want to query this database from the app to retrieve content for the app. After some research, it looks like I should approach this by adding my own API for querying the database to an EC2 instance. Then, rather than directly accessing the RDS instance from the app, I access the API on the EC2 instance which accesses the RDS instance for me. Firstly, is this the way to go? I'm open to other suggestions too.
Here's what I have done so far, after reading this post:
Installed apache and php on my EC2 instance.
Obtained an elastic IP address for my EC2 instance.
Added a file (let's call it retrieve-data.php) to apache that uses my RDS instance endpoint, username, and password to query the database and return data.
From my ios application, I can then send an http request to elastic_ip_address_of_my_ec2_instance/retrieve-data.php to get the data from my RDS database in my app. Is this the way to go? Can this be improved upon in any way?

Answer 1

Edit: changing this answer to whats in my comment below;
The solution is what is suggested in How to connect amazon RDS in iOS, which is installing a webserver on the EC2 instance and writing a web app to make your RDS calls for you. This will involve some kind of web programming, there's a simple explanation here in the top comment. Then you can use RestKit to implement the calls from your app to the EC2 instance: github.com/RestKit/RestKit

Answer 2

For anyone who might find this useful, below is a summary of the steps you can take to get this all set up.
Set-up:
There are three options covered in the below steps:
A = NO domain name, NO load balancing
B = YES domain name, NO load balancing
C = YES domain name, YES load balancing
(A+B+C) Create an EC2 instance.
(A+B+C) Install all the necessities on your instance. At the very least, you'll want apache2 and whatever language(s) you wish to use for any backend scripts you want to run on your instance. I've used php.
(A+B) If you don't want to get a domain name to use to access your EC2 instance, or if you want a domain name but don't need load balancing, you'll want to get an elastic IP address for your instance. This can be easily done through AWS. (C) If you want to use a domain name and load balancing, you won't need an elastic IP address. Go ahead and get yourself a domain name. I used namecheap.com. They currently (August, 2015) have .xyz TLDs for just $1.18 USD/year.
(A+B+C) Add your backend files to the apache web server you installed on your EC2 instance in step 2.
(B+C) Set up a hosted zone in Amazon Route 53. NOTE: Route 53 is NOT included in the AWS free tier and is therefore NOT FREE. The costs are here. (B only) Add A record(s) to your Route 53 hosted zone that point to the elastic IP of your EC2 instance.
(B+C) Transfer the name servers of your domain name to the 3-5 name servers Route 53 gave you after completing step 5. The transfer will be done from the site you registered your domain name with.
(C) Set up load balancing for your EC2 instance(s) in AWS. Note your load balancer's end point.
(C) Add alias record(s) to your Route 53 hosted zone that point to your load balancer's end point.
Accessing your files on EC2
Let's say you have a php script myscript.php that you saved to your server in step 4. To run this script on your EC2 server after finishing the set up, you can do the following:
A - Open up a web browser and enter the following into the address bar: elastic_IP_of_your_EC2_instance/myscript.php
B+C - Open up a web browser and enter the following into the address bar: yourdomain.com/myscript.php
Hope this is helpful!