Deploying an Application Using CloudFormation with CDN Integration

Introduction:

This project automates the deployment of the application on AWS using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) with AWS CloudFormation. The infrastructure is divided into separate stacks: one for the network setup and one for the application deployment. The goal is to provision, configure, and tear down the necessary infrastructure with ease. It also integrates a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to enhance application performance and ensure global availability.

Infrastructure diagram

Project Overview

This project uses CloudFormation to provision the following resources:

• VPC with public and private subnets
• Load Balancer to handle HTTP/HTTPS traffic
• EC2 instances running the application
• S3 for static content storage
• CloudFront for content delivery
• IAM roles and policies for security

The deployment is divided into two independent stacks:

• Network Stack: Managed by the network team, this stack provisions VPCs, subnets, and security groups.
• Application Stack: Responsible for provisioning the application components, including EC2 instances, load balancers, S3, and CloudFront.

Prerequisites:

• AWS account with appropriate permissions
• AWSCLI Install awscli and configured
• Basic knowledge of CloudFormation and its template structure.
• CloudFormation templates for both the Network and Application stacks.
• Scripts to create, update, deploy and delete the stacks.

Spin up instructions

To spin up your infrastructure using the provided scripts, follow the steps below:

• script to create stack:

#!/bin/bash

# Usage: ./create.sh <stack-name> <template-file> <parameters-file>

aws cloudformation create-stack --stack-name $1 \
    --template-body file://$2   \
    --parameters file://$3  \
    --capabilities "CAPABILITY_NAMED_IAM"  \
    --region=us-east-1

You can edit the scripts to either delete, deploy or update stack, the purpose of the scripts is to avoid running the multiple line commands everytime.

• make the scripts executable

chmod +x <scripts.sh>

• Use the create.sh script to create a new CloudFormation stack, create the network stack first since the application stack depends on it resources (like vpc, subnets)
• The script requires three parameters (such as StackName, ParameterFile, and TemplateFile. You will need to pass these parameters as per the instructions in the script.

./create.sh StackName ParameterFile TemplateFile

In this case

./create.sh networkStack network-parameters.json network.yml

This script creates a new stack with the provided parameters.

• Update an existing stack:

./update.sh StackName ParameterFile TemplateFile

This script will update the stack with new configurations based on the changes in the parameter or template file.

• Deploy a stack:

./deploy.sh StackName ParameterFile TemplateFile

The deploy.sh script checks if the stack already exists. If it does, the script will update the stack; if it doesn't, it will create a new stack. It very useful for automation like CI/CD pipeline

• create stack for the application as well ParameterFile, TemplateFile.

./create.sh networkStack udagram-parameters.json udagram.yml

• Confirm your application is live

CloudFrontURL: https://d1gjuuten5htu8.cloudfront.net

WebAppLBDNS: http://udagra-WebAp-mMkpfHQBWeXO-1923467063.us-east-1.elb.amazonaws.com

• Tear down the deployed resources, follow these instructions:

./delete.sh StackName

Use the delete.sh script to delete a stack. The script only requires one parameter: the name of the stack you wish to delete.

Conclusion

• Cloudformation streamlines resource creation and reduces manual errors.
• Improves scalability, easy to replicate the setup in different environments.
• CDN Integration improves performance and ensures low latency worldwide.