Motivation
Hello, all. This is my first time exploring IBM Bob. I was using the Trial Version. Just want to know more about IBM Bob. I have some existing AWS Infrastructure and quite simple enough to be migrated. I asked IBM Bob to migrate AWS App Runner to Amazon ECS Express mode.
As AWS App Runner has given notice to me about the end of support, I haven't thought to migrate yet. However, after some thought, as I may reuse some existing applications, I changed my mind.
Reading the migration guide, it was quite a lot of information for my simple application. I barely use AWS App Runner, AWS Secrets Manager, and AWS CDK. As I haven't used a custom domain yet, it should be straightforward.
Introduction
What's IBM Bob?
If you don't know IBM Bob. This is the short introduction from the documentation.
IBM Bob is an AI SDLC (Software Development Lifecycle) partner that augments your existing workflows and helps you work confidently with real codebases.
I would say, in short, it's an IDE that integrates with AI "natively". There are some specialized modes: Agent mode, Ask mode, and Plan mode. In this article, it heavily mentions the Plan mode, but it also involves Agent mode "in the background".
What's AWS App Runner?
You may have a look at this short introduction of AWS App Runner.
AWS App Runner builds and deploys web applications automatically, load balances traffic with encryption, scales to meet your traffic needs, and allows for the configuration of how services are accessed and communicate with other AWS applications in a private Amazon VPC.
In short, you can deploy your web application or API, especially when you have containerised the application; it will simply handle the infrastructure, and you only need to deploy your container image.
What's Amazon ECS Express mode?
Here is the short introduction of Amazon ECS Express Mode. In simple words, it's the replacement of AWS App Runner. But I don't want to use that term more widely. Let's learn more about Amazon ECS Express Mode later.
It's really helpful to configure our infrastructure under Amazon ECS Express Mode, especially as a developer who wants to experiment with AWS. I was trying to configure Amazon ECS from scratch, and it took me a long time to successfully deploy a simple application. Which is stopping me from using it, and decide to use App Runner instead. But now we have Amazon ECS Express Mode, let's migrate it!
What's AWS CDK?
Let's see in short about AWS CDK.
Define your cloud application resources using familiar programming languages
Behind AWS CDK, it will create the AWS CloudFormation; however, I can programmatically craft the infrastrucure use programing language such as
TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Java, C#, and Go.
Starting from planning
I didn't like migrating the existing infrastructure directly, even though it's just a development environment. As a context, I want to migrate my development/experiment environment. Basically, my strategy is to initiate the ECS Express and keep the AWS App Runner.
Vibe Coding - The First Prompt for Planning
I asked Bob to prepare the plan and prompt the very first prompt.
There are some points that I love about how IBM Bob handled the plan.
- IBM Bob can clearly understand the existing infrastructure by quickly reading the application code and the infrastructure code.
- IBM Bob can advise on the best way to migrate, even though I didn't ask clearly before.
However, it's assuming that I didn't want to. I would like Amazon ECS Express, which is the simple way to handle ECS without handling much of the infrastructure. As this is quite new knowledge, IBM Bob assumes I want a standard/regular Amazon ECS with Fargate. So the first attempt is partially good. Here is the first commit/attemp.
Some Interactions Screenshots
- Question prompt
- Finished the plan with IBM Bob's assumption.
Driving the IBM Bob to clearly understand the new knowledge
IBM Bob can't stop surprising me. It's able to understand what I want by providing an article that explains how to use Amazon ECS Express in more detail. Even on the second attempt, I was providing the migration guide, and IBM Bob didn't understand how to migrate into Amazon ECS Express.
After driving Bob to explore CfnExpressGatewayService, surprisingly, IBM Bob provided me with a quick fix after the first and second attempts. Here is the solid result.
Some Screenshots
- Resolving after driving to new knowledge
Lesson Learned
There was a great experience trying IBM Bob. After the last attempt, I wasn't aware if my application was still broken. I didn't notice if the application wasn't aware of the Environment Variable. I'm not sure since when, however, after I tried to deploy. It kept failing. I was afraid it was the infra config; however, it was not. After more debugging on my local, I noticed the environment variable was not detected. So, I fixed the application and reverted the infra config to the IBM Bob suggested at first glance. Voilà, it's now running perfectly!
Thank you
Thank you for reading. It was really quick for the fix/migration, but not for the debugging, as I didn't have enough time to execute or check in my local environment lately. After having some time to check on the application, I got the answer as to why the deployment was failing after the infra migration.
This is just a little story, not the deep knowledge of how to migrate it step by step. As my prompt's result can be different for you, I don't want to rely on that. However, I will rely on how you should drive the AI to give the best context for the migration process. I hope it helps.
Cheers!
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