Acquia provides Acquia’s Front End Hosting - Advanced to help you effortlessly build and host sites developed in most of the popular javascript frameworks including Next.js to support Server-Side Rendered (SSR) and Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) sites on Acquia Cloud Platform. To use Acquia’s Front End Hosting - Advanced, you can 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 (fast initial load times) with the flexibility of dynamic content. Upon each request, the server fetches the necessary data and renders the HTML page, which is then sent to the user's browser. SSR is particularly useful when content needs to be personalized or frequently updated.

Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) Sites¶

ISR sites are a hybrid of static and server-side rendered sites. They initially generate static HTML pages, but also allow for specific pages to be regenerated on the server at predetermined intervals or when triggered by certain events. This approach ensures that most content is served quickly from static files and allows dynamic updates without the need to rebuild the entire site. ISR is ideal for sites with a mix of static and dynamic content, where some pages require more frequent updates than others.

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) using 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 ensures high availability by maintaining at least two replica instances across all environments.

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 cache clearing feature that automatically clears stored data following 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 building and deployment phases for artifacts efficiently.

9. Drupal Integration:

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

10. NewRelic Integration:

    Application comes with NewRelic license for monitoring application performance. 

Limitations¶

Front End Hosting - Advanced has the following limitations:

• It supports only NPM package manager for building and installing dependencies.
• Acquia Pipeline is not supported with Frontend Hosting - Advanced.
• It will always build the artifact before every deployment. Customers cannot bring their own builds or builds created by Code Studio at the moment.
• Customers won’t be able to modify the port configuration for their applications. The execution port is preset and managed internally to ensure optimal performance and security across our hosting environment. If you encounter “Service Unavailable” error, please set the application port to 3000.
• Log forwarding is not supported.
• Blacklisting/Whitelisting IPs are not supported.
• SSH access to Node.js environments isn’t supported.
• Custom load balancer configurations aren’t supported. E.g. Default max_conn limit on load balancer can’t be changed.