When AWS-based application fails, how to set a Fail Whale style page?

Question

I have not been able to find an option for AWS ELB to show a fail whale-style system message when servers are failing to reassure customers that we are working on the problem.

The best we can come up with is to set a micro-ec2 instance and then monitor server health with a daemon or cron job or using monit, and bring up this micro instance when all servers are down.

Are there any other more elegant solutions to this problem?

Answer 1

Route 53 can check your site and redirect users to a fail page for you. If its static, you could host this page on s3.