Running a Single Page App and can’t wait for Lambda@Edge? Here’s an alternative*

* Yes, I do understand that Lambda@Edge will provide a completely different level of scale and performance, and is an industrialised managed offering. None the less, what’s described below could serve many use cases just fine. 😉

With that, on to it.

There’s no point arguing that Single Page Apps (SPAs) are in vogue. One of the approaches to SPAs is to move business logic into the client, and leverage a range of API-based services to provide needed server-side functionality. Here’s a very good argument presented on this topic: Joe Emison – 10X Product Development.

A side effect of following this pattern is your SPA code ends up on a server that only knows how to serve your static client content (html / js / css / images). This may present a problem when you try to integrate your SPA with another stand-alone application, for example, blog hosted by WordPress.

Let’s have a look in a bit more detail, followed by what can be done about it.

A couple of useful links

Some time ago AWS Partner Netwok Blog published a couple articles that cover AWS Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) networking in great detail, with a bunch of links to further info. Best of all, they were written by a networking person, for readers with networking backgroun in mind.

While we all know how to use your favourite search engine, a little promotion sometimes goes a long way. 🙂 So, here they are:

Amazon VPC for On-Premises Network Engineers, Part One

Amazon VPC for On-Premises Network Engineers, Part Two

Happy reading! 🙂

Deploying Brocade Virtual Traffic Manager cluster in AWS through a CloudFormation template

Last time we’ve talked about the concept of Infrastructure as Code (IaC), and introduced two most prominent tools in the space, AWS CloudFormation and Hashicorp Terraform.

In this post, we’ll have a look at an AWS CloudFormation template that you can use to deploy a cluster of 2 x Brocade Virtual Traffic Managers with WAF into a new AWS VPC; what makes up that template; and how it all works.

We will take things quite slowly here. Some basic understanding of automation and/or scripting/programming will help, but not strictly necessary.

If on other hand you’re already well-versed in AWS CloudFormation but still interested in automating deployment of Brocade Virtual Traffic Managers in AWS, feel free to jump straight to the GitHub repo, and optionally read the vADC EC2 Instances section below.

Please note that this is work in progress and the code you’ll find there has no official support at this time, but rest assured, it is coming! 🙂

What is Infrastructure as Code, and why you should care

Applications are lifeblood of a modern business. This means that IT groups everywhere are looking for ways to develop, test, and deploy applications quicker, while reducing risk of mistakes and thus potential defects and security issues.

In this post, we’ll have a quick look at how an approach called “Infrastructure as Code” can help.