Acquia offers Front End Hosting - Advanced to build and host sites developed in popular JavaScript frameworks, such as Next.js. This supports Server-Side Rendered (SSR) and Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) sites on Acquia Cloud Platform. To use Front End Hosting - Advanced, add it to your existing Drupal cloud subscription.

Server-Side Rendered (SSR) sites¶

SSR sites generate HTML content dynamically for each request on the server. This approach combines the benefits of static sites, that includes fast initial load times, with the flexibility of dynamic content. For each request, the server fetches data and renders the HTML page before it is sent to the browser. SSR is well suited for content that is personalized or frequently updated.

Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) sites¶

ISR sites represent a powerful hybrid approach that combines the benefits of static site generation and server-side rendering. Initially, ISR generates static HTML pages to ensure fast load times and efficient content delivery from static files. ISR also supports the selective regeneration of specific pages on the server. The regeneration occurs either at predetermined time intervals or in response to particular triggers or events. This dynamic regeneration process ensures content stays current without the need of a full-site rebuild. This balances performance with freshness. ISR is well-suited for websites that contain a mix of primarily static content alongside pages that require more frequent updates. This optimized strategy delivers speed, scalability, and flexibility in content management.

Features¶

Front End Hosting - Advanced supports the following features:

1. Auto scaling:

   Environments are auto scaled for production applications based on traffic.

2. Shared filesystem to support ISR:

   Environments have a shared filesystem to support Next.js ISR capabilities. 

3. Content Delivery Network (CDN) integration:

   Front End Hosting - Advanced integrates with a Content Delivery Network (CDN) through the third-party tool, Platform CDN, to enhance the distribution of web content.

4. Real-time monitoring and retrieval of balancer/environment logs:

   Front End Hosting - Advanced monitoring provides the capability to download historical environment logs for offline analysis and to stream log data in real-time for live monitoring.
   For more information, visit About Cloud Platform logging.

5. High availability configuration:

   Front End Hosting – Advanced maintains at least two replica instances in every environment to ensure high availability.

6. Provisioning of three default environments:

   Front End Hosting - Advanced comes provisioned with three default environments to support development (dev), staging (stage), and production (prod) environments. Customers can expand their environment setup with the purchase of additional environments to cater to any specific needs.

7. Automated cache clearing:

   Front End Hosting - Advanced comes with a feature to clear cache that automatically clears stored data after each deployment. This ensures that users always access the most recent content. Additionally, there is cache invalidation based on Time-To-Live (TTL) configurations at the CDN level through Fastly. Customers also have the capability to manually initiate a cache clearance task as needed.

8. Code Studio integration:

   Customers with an existing Code Studio subscription can use it for Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) with our service. This integration allows for the use of Code Studio to handle the build and deployment phases for artifacts efficiently.

9. Drupal integration:

   Applications can be integrated with Drupal applications through Drupal Starter Kits.

10. NewRelic integration:

    Application includes a New Relic license to monitor application performance.

11. Custom CI/CD pipeline integration:

    Frontend Hosting Advanced supports integration with customer-managed CI/CD pipelines. Organizations can use their own build processes through this integration.

12. Performance improvement

    Frontend Hosting Advanced provides enhanced performance over Node.js Classic hosting.

Limitations¶

Front End Hosting - Advanced has the following limitations:

• It supports only NPM package manager to build and install dependencies.
• Acquia Pipeline is not supported with Frontend Hosting - Advanced.
• Customers cannot modify the port configuration for their applications. The execution port is preset and managed internally to ensure optimal performance and security across the hosting environment. If you encounter a Service Unavailable error, set the application port to 3000.
• Log forwarding is not supported.
• IP blacklisting and whitelisting are not supported.
• SSH access to Node.js environments is not supported.
• Custom load balancer configurations are not supported. E.g. Default max_conn limit on load balancer cannot be changed.