Dear Lazyweb: Help me ignore the speed limit. Where do I go to master EC2 fast?

[elfs]

Dear Lazyweb,

I need help with EC2. I'm an EC2 beginner, and I have a one-time task that needs a lot of CPU. I can do it serially, in which case it'll cost me about $200. Or I can run it all at once on many EC2 instances, but I don't know how to do it. The task consists of a series of basic unix commands.

What's the fastest way to get sufficiently up to speed on this that I can build a linux instance ready to do the task, fork off about a thousand of these puppies, and then tell them "go?"

I'm not looking for actual programming advice; I want meta-advice. What books and/or tutorials should I read?

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Comments

[duskwuff.livejournal.com]

Is it worth more than $200 to you to get it done faster? Because EC2 isn't magic.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

No, EC2 isn't magic. It's just computronium. And yes, it is worth way more than $200 to get it done faster.

Besides, it'll cost about $200 either way.

[loxley.startssl.com (from livejournal.com)]

Generate an Ami:http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AmazonEC2/gsg/2006-10-01/creating-an-image.html
All about EC2
http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AmazonEC2/gsg/2006-10-01/

Manage your machines:
http://boto.s3.amazonaws.com/ec2_tut.html

Look what others did:
http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/self-service-prorated-super-computing-fun/
and
http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/the-new-york-times-archives-amazon-web-services-timesmachine/

Have fun

Niki