- I want to test out interessting technology which might be relevant for me in the future
- the Cloud Provider should be something else than AWS
- I might try Travis CI to leverage the Github student pack
- really wanted to test out Kubernetes for a long time
- BUT: Kubernetes is way to much overhead for this kind of app, only makes sense in multi microservice architecture
## Thinking of the stack
- want to use a cloud native setup
- the development of the app is assumed to happen on a local machine (dev stage with vagrant or local docker)
- environments will be: dev | test? | production
- stages will be: build | test | (deploy?) | production
- app is virtually split into front-end and back-end
- frontend runs on a *nginx* webserver
- backend needs a NodeJS server
- database will be hosted on a separate service (MongoDB Atlas, 200€ Credits via Github Student Pack)
- frontend and backend run on the same vps and communication will be managed by a reverse proxy configuration
```mermaid
graph TB
GH[Github Repo] -->|triggered via hooks|CI[CI via Travis]
CI-->CD[CD via Travis]
CD-->|runs|T[TerraForm]
subgraph subID["Cloudprovider: Linode | AWS"]
T-->A("Configuration Management Ansible")
A-->C["Docker Containers"]
T-->|provisions|C
C-->F(Nginx: 81)
C-->B(NodeJS: 4001)
C-->DB[(MongoDB)]
end
style subID color:white,fill:#f9ff9,stroke:yellow
style B color:black,fill:#f91,stroke:#313,stroke-width:4px
style F color:white,fill:#191,stroke:#313,stroke-width:4px
```
### Linode Cloud Plattform
- starting with the cloud provider, since my provisioning tooling has to support it (otherwise I would end up writing providers)
- linode seems to have a really cheap solutions with 100€ starter-bonus
- furthermore it seems to be battle tested system with better (personal) sympathy than AWS or GCP, next favorable candidate might be Azure
- very good documentation
- really good terraform provider
- server locations in europe/germany
### Terraform
- provisioning will happen via *terraform*
- it's cloud agnostic, so no vendor lock in etc.
- terraform is also suitable for setting up a load balancer
- if there is a benefitial setup I will use **ansible** for *Configuration Management*
### VSC
- the software is managed in a Github Repo
- CI will be triggered by GitHub Hooks
### / CI / CD
- I want to test Travis for **CI/CD**
- The CI will have also 3 stages: test / build / deploy
- after successfully building and testing it will trigger the deployment process
- the deployment will only start on expected git:tags or if the branch equals "master"
### Nginx (frontend)
- listening on port 80
- CD has to move the dist folder of the react app into the public html directory
- nginx setup has to point to that certain folder and serve it
- nginx has to catch requests which are neither directed to client nor backend-services
### NodeJS (backend)
- listening on own port 4001
- reached via http calls from the app (defined as "BASE_URL" env variable)
- the reverse proxy will reach trough requests to the API-Url
- does not include the mongodb
### Database on MongoDB Atlas
- is an external service which offers a public API
- therefore I don´t have to setup database clusters by my own
- I could provision this also by my own, but not sure if this is getting to expensive on Linode
- alternatively I will provision a MongoDB VPS on AWS
- seperating the MongoDB from the VPS of the front- & backend gives me more flexebility and the servers (front/back) are absolutley stateless
```mermaid
graph LR
R[Request] -->|www|C[Firewall/Loadbalancer]
C-->RP
RP-->F
RP-->B
B-->|API|DB
subgraph subID[replicable VPS]
RP{Nginx: Reverse Proxy :80 }
F(Nginx: Frontend React : 81)
B(NodeJS: Backend : 4001)
end
subgraph MongoDB<br/>Atlas Service*
DB[(MongoDB)]
end
style subID color:white,fill:#f9ff9,stroke:yellow
style B color:black,fill:#f91,stroke:#313,stroke-width:4px
style F color:white,fill:#191,stroke:#313,stroke-width:4px
```
## Questions and Improvments:
- The (static files of the) react app is going to get served directly via the reverse proxy. Or is it better to spin up another nginx instance for that?
- Is it legit to use MongoDB Atlas as a database service or do I have to provision this by my own?
