Front End Hosting - Advanced provisions a Node.js application with the following environments:

• Development (Dev)

• Staging (Stage)

• Production (Prod)

Viewing an application¶

1. Sign in to the Cloud Platform user interface.
2. In the top menu, click Develop.
3. Select your organization.
4. Select an application.
5. Click View <application name>.

New environments are provisioned with the default content page.

To verify that a site is working correctly, visit the default URL of a specific environment:

Setting up¶

1. Add a public key to your Acquia profile.
2. Clone the application’s repository.
3. Copy your code to a new Git repository.

4. Configure the package.json file.

   The package.json file must be located in the root folder of your project that contains the following commands. These are required to host a NodeJS site.

5. Build command configuration.

   Utilize the NodeJS Hosting's build system by setting npm install && npm run build as your build command, assuring a robust and efficient deployment process.

   copy

   "scripts": {
       ...
       "build": "npm install && next build",
       "start": "next start",
     },
    	 

Framework based custom configuration¶

​Configure the start script in your package.json file in order to initiate the production server. Use the command that corresponds to your specific framework.

{
  "scripts": {
    "build": "npm install",
    "start": "node index.js"
  },
}

To serve production builds of frameworks like Angular, React, and Vue, we recommend using either serve or http-server. These Node.js packages provide simple and efficient ways to host static files.

Installation¶

Install your preferred package using npm:

$ npm install serve

or

$ npm install http-server

Usage¶

After you build the project (typically into a dist directory), start the production server with the following commands:

serve -s dist

http-server dist

You can also include these commands in the start script of your package.json for easy deployment.

Implementing autoscaling¶

Autoscaling is vital to enhance the performance of your application and enable it to handle variable workloads. This feature dynamically adjusts the number of active instances of your environment based on its real-time performance metrics. The enablement process revolves around integrating the acquia-autoscaling javascript into your project that collects the necessary metrics.

To implement autoscaling in your application:

1. Add the acquia-autoscaling.js script to the root directory of your project.

   The following code snippet shows the content of the script:

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   // acquia-autoscaling.js
   const { collectDefaultMetrics, Registry } = require('prom-client');
   
   // Create a new registry to track default metrics
   const register = new Registry();
   
   // Enable the collection of default metrics
   collectDefaultMetrics({ register });
   
   // Set up an HTTP server to expose the metrics
   const http = require('http');
   const server = http.createServer(async (req, res) => {
     if (req.url === '/metrics') {
       try {
         // Respond with metrics in Prometheus format
         res.setHeader('Content-Type', register.contentType);
         const metrics = await register.metrics();
         res.end(metrics);
       } catch (err) {
         res.writeHead(500);
         res.end(err.message);
       }
     } else {
       res.writeHead(404);
       res.end('Not Found');
     }
   });
   
   const monitoringPort = 9100;
   server.listen(monitoringPort, () => {
     console.log(`Acquia Node.js Monitoring server listening on port ${monitoringPort}`);
   });
   
   // Prevent the Node.js process from exiting
   process.stdin.resume();
   

2. Edit the the package.json file to add the NODE_OPTIONS='-r ./acquia-autoscaling.js' string before the original start command of your application:

   • If your original start command is node server.js, change it to: 

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     "start": "NODE_OPTIONS='-r ./acquia-autoscaling.js' node server.js"

   • If your original start command is next start, change it to: 

     copy

     "start": "NODE_OPTIONS='-r ./acquia-autoscaling.js' next start"

   Important

   Ensure that you place the string right before the main entry point of your application in the start script. Otherwise, the autoscaling feature might become inoperative.

3. Install the prom-client dependency by running the following NPM command:

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   npm install prom-client

   This command adds the prom-client package to your application's dependencies.

   Important

   Ensure that you install the prom-client package correctly because it is mandatory for the acquia-autoscaling.js script to work.

4. Verify the functionality of your application to ensure that metrics are being correctly exposed and autoscaling is operational.

   After successful implementation and verification, your application can scale automatically to adapt to usage patterns and sustain optimal performance.

Environment variables configuration¶

For information about configuring environment variables, visit Creating custom environment variables.

To use the latest environment variable values in your Node.js code, incorporate them during the Node.js build process. Any changes to environment variables will require a redeployment of your Front End Hosting - Advanced site to update both build and runtime environments.

Deployment workflow¶

1. Visit Code workflows with Cloud Platform.

   Deployment implicitly triggers the build.

2. Deploy the branch:

3. Deploy the branch <new-branch> on the Cloud UI.

   For more information, visit Deploying code in the same environment

   NodeJS workflows will build the artifact and deploy it on Node JS sites.

In the future, new commits to the new branch trigger its deployment automatically.

Subscription details¶

For information about viewing your subscription details, visit Viewing subscriptions.

Monitoring¶

For monitoring instructions, visit Using Stack Metrics to monitor activity on your environments.

Build minutes¶

As part of the code build/deployment process, multiple commands run in the backend to produce a build artifact and deploy it to an environment. These include:

• git commands to clone code from an application repository
• npm run-build commands to produce the deployable bundle of an environment branch

Application deployment¶

The total build time is tracked as build minutes.

• If a customer goes over the allocated build minutes, they can continue to use Front End Hosting - Advanced. However, an Account Manager is notified and the account holder is contacted to upgrade the assigned entitlement.
• Build is implicitly triggered with each deployment. Build logs are visible in “Task Logs” in Cloud UI. A build is retriggered 2 times upon failure.
• Post Deployment Cloud Actions can be enabled/disabled to clear Varnish/CDN cache.

Domain configuration¶

• Visit Managing domains

CDN configuration¶

• Visit Cloud Platform CDN