HumanGov: Proof of Concept (POC) on AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS) fronted By Application Load Balancer (ALB) and Storing Docker Images on Elastic Container Registry (ECR)
During this hands-on project, I delved into the intricate world of cloud architecture and deployment. My task revolved around the HumanGov application, which was to be modernized, containerized, and deployed onto the AWS Cloud environment. I started by creating necessary IAM roles, followed by initializing the AWS Cloud 9 environment and cleaning up outdated directories. This set the stage for our application transition, as I then containerized the HumanGov application using Docker. Next, I built and pushed our Docker images to AWS ECR for both our Flask app and the NGINX application. The meticulous step-by-step process ensured each layer was built properly with the right configurations.
Using Terraform, I provisioned an AWS S3 Bucket and a DynamoDB table. Terraform’s Infrastructure as Code capability streamlined this process, allowing me to instantiate, modify, and version infrastructure safely and efficiently. With AWS S3 and DynamoDB ready, it was then onto the Elastic Container Service (ECS). After creating an ECS cluster, I formulated a Task Definition for our ECS deployment.
This definition detailed the containers, their roles, and necessary configurations, from environment variables to port settings.
Finally, it was time for deployment. I set up a service on ECS, using Fargate as the launch type. The service seamlessly integrated our Docker containers, AWS configurations, and the necessary resources to ensure our application’s optimal performance. The results were a fully functional, scalable, and resilient cloud-based HumanGov application.
Overall, this project gave me an in-depth understanding of cloud deployment processes, from IAM roles, Docker containerization, AWS ECR, Terraform provisioning, to AWS ECS service deployment. Each step was a lesson in best practices, troubleshooting, and the immense potential of cloud technologies.
