I started over, making sure that I have the consistent VPC and subnets, and that seems to have launched me past that database connectivity problem for now.
The ssl configuration of the replicated EC2 image is redirecting to the secure connection … in other words it won’t allow a http connection to the replicated image and immediately redirects to my domain with a https:// and I cannot remember how to “undo” this behavior. I know there must be a .cnf or .conf file somewhere that controls the redirection of http to https (forcing a https connection).
Update — I eliminated a .htaccess file and modified all the relevant .conf and .cnf files I could find. Finally sent a message to Amazon Tech Support to help me out on this.
–Ralf