title: How to efficiently store AWS machine IDs in Db
body: <p>We have a web application deployed on quite a few AWS machines, all served by a central (MySQL) DB.</p>
  
  <p>We currently log some events to a table in DB, and would like to add some sort of identification which machine generated the event. We are looking for the most efficient way to do so.</p>
  
  <p>What would be a good source for this - machine IP address? Instance ID?
  And how to store it - as a straight up Varchar? As a Numeric value? As a hash of some sort?</p>