[Exist-open] Amazon Beanstalk <--> eXist?

[Joe W. <jo...@gm...>]

Hi eXist list,

I've been interested in Amazon-based hosting of eXist instances for a
while now, but recently Amazon announced a new service that looks like
it might make eXist deployment and scalability even more convenient
"Amazon Beanstalk."

I'm wondering is how Beanstalk might change the way a project like
mine would deploy eXist.  Below I've included some specifics about
Beanstalk.[1]

My question is: Beanstalk seems WAR and Tomcat-centric.  I've never
used either WARs or Tomcat in my entire eXist lifetime.  Is eXist set
up currently to be packaged up in the form that Amazon Beanstalk can
consume?  Has anyone done this, or are there any write-ups or
tutorials on this?

Thanks!
Joe


[1] Here's the description of how Beanstalk works from
http://aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk:

   To deploy Java applications using Elastic Beanstalk, you simply:

    * Create your application as you normally would using any editor
or IDE (e.g. Eclipse).
    * Package your deployable code into a standard Java Web
Application Archive (WAR file).
    * Upload your WAR file to Elastic Beanstalk using the AWS
Management Console, the AWS Toolkit for Eclipse, the web service APIs,
or the Command Line Tools.
    * Deploy your application. Behind the scenes, Elastic Beanstalk
handles the provisioning of a load balancer and the deployment of your
WAR file to one or more EC2 instances running the Apache Tomcat
application server.
    * Within a few minutes you will be able to access your application
at a customized URL (e.g. http://myapp.elasticbeanstalk.com/).

  Once an application is running, Elastic Beanstalk provides several
management features such as:

    * Easily deploy new application versions to running environments
(or rollback to a previous version).
    * Access built-in CloudWatch monitoring metrics such as average
CPU utilization, request count, and average latency.
    * Receive e-mail notifications through Amazon Simple Notification
Service when application health changes or application servers are
added or removed.
    * Access Tomcat server log files without needing to login to the
application servers.
    * Quickly restart the application servers on all EC2 instances
with a single command.

  With Elastic Beanstalk, developers retain full control over the AWS
resources powering their application, and can perform a variety of
functions by simply adjusting default configuration settings from the
Elastic Beanstalk management console, including:

    * Selecting the most appropriate Amazon EC2 instance type that
matches the CPU and memory requirements of their application
    * Choosing from several available database and storage options
such as Amazon RDS, Amazon SimpleDB, Microsoft SQL Server, or Oracle.
    * Enabling login access to Amazon EC2 instances for immediate and
direct troubleshooting
    * Quickly improving application reliability by running in more
than one Availability Zone
    * Enhancing application security by enabling HTTPS protocol on the
load balancer
    * Adjusting JVM settings and passing environment variables
    * Running other application components, such as a memory caching
service, side-by-side in Amazon EC2
    * Adjust Auto-Scaling settings to control the metrics and
thresholds used to determine when to add or remove instances from an
environment