37 minutes to deploy a fullstack app on my new AWS account

Today, I was working on our Terraform Provider, and I noticed that I never tried to deploy an application from scratch on a new and clean AWS account. Meaning, an empty AWS account - with 0 resources created. No VPC, no EC2, no Load Balancer, nothing... just an IAM user to get access to my AWS account programmatically. This post explains what I did and how it took 37 minutes and 33 seconds to literally:

1. create a VPC (10 min)
2. create an EKS cluster and a load balancer (5 min)
3. create an ECR repository (10 sec)
4. deploy an RDS database (15 min)
5. build and deploy my Django app from GitHub (2 min)
6. add a custom domain to my app (2 min)
7. create a TLS for my custom domain (15 sec)
8. And tada! 🎉

😅 Let's explain all of that!

---

Am I a wizard?

No, no... Let me explain. To deploy my full-stack app and make it available online I used the Qovery Terraform Provider. Basically, it makes AWS super easy and straightforward for anyone. No need to bother in configuring all the tiny details of each AWS resource. Behind the scene, Qovery manages all of that for us and even give us access to all the configuration. But here, I am just going to focus on the high level.

Show me the code!

Yes sir! Here is my Terraform manifest.

terraform {
  required_providers {
    qovery = {
      source  = "qovery/qovery"
    }
  }
}

provider "qovery" {
  token = var.qovery_access_token
}

resource "qovery_aws_credentials" "romaric_aws_creds" {
  organization_id   = var.organization_id
  name              = "romaric test AWS creds"
  access_key_id     = var.aws_access_key_id
  secret_access_key = var.aws_secret_access_key
}

resource "qovery_cluster" "my_test_cluster" {
  organization_id = var.organization_id
  credentials_id  = qovery_aws_credentials.romaric_aws_creds.id
  name            = "romaric test AWS cluster"
  description     = "Welcome in the TerraWorld"
  cloud_provider  = "AWS"
  region          = "eu-west-3"
  cpu             = 2000
  memory          = 8192

  depends_on = [
    qovery_aws_credentials.romaric_aws_creds
  ]
}

resource "qovery_project" "proj_test" {
  organization_id       = var.organization_id
  name                  = "TestProj"
  environment_variables = []

  depends_on = [
    qovery_cluster.my_test_cluster
  ]
}

resource "qovery_environment" "dev" {
  project_id            = qovery_project.proj_test.id
  name                  = "dev"
  environment_variables = []

  depends_on = [
    qovery_project.proj_test
  ]
}

resource "qovery_database" "psql" {
  environment_id = qovery_environment.dev.id
  name           = "psql"
  type           = "POSTGRESQL"
  version        = "13"
  mode           = "MANAGED"
  accessibility  = "PRIVATE"
  cpu            = 500
  memory         = 256
  storage        = 10240

  depends_on = [
    qovery_environment.dev
  ]
}

resource "qovery_application" "backend" {
  environment_id = qovery_environment.dev.id
  name           = "backend"
  cpu            = 500
  memory         = 256
  state          = "RUNNING"
  git_repository = {
    url       = "https://github.com/evoxmusic/ShortMe-URL-Shortener.git"
    branch    = "main"
    root_path = "/"
  }
  build_mode            = "BUILDPACKS"
  buildpack_language    = "PYTHON"
  min_running_instances = 1
  max_running_instances = 1
  ports                 = [
    {
      internal_port       = 3333
      external_port       = 443
      protocol            = "HTTP"
      publicly_accessible = true
    }
  ]
  environment_variables = [
    {
      key   = "PORT"
      value = "3333"
    }
  ]

  depends_on = [
    qovery_environment.dev,
    qovery_database.psql # IMPORTANT !
  ]
}

If you copy it and you run it with terraform apply - you will have the same result!

(venv) ~/I/q/c/romaric $ terraform apply -auto-approve
qovery_aws_credentials.romaric_aws_creds: Refreshing state... [id=<hidden>]

Terraform used the selected providers to generate the following execution plan. Resource actions are
indicated with the following symbols:
  + create

Terraform will perform the following actions:

  # qovery_application.backend will be created
  + resource "qovery_application" "backend" {
      + auto_preview          = false
      + build_mode            = "BUILDPACKS"
      + buildpack_language    = "PYTHON"
      + cpu                   = 500
      + environment_id        = (known after apply)
      + environment_variables = [
          + {
              + id    = (known after apply)
              + key   = "PORT"
              + value = "3333"
            },
        ]
      + git_repository        = {
          + branch    = "main"
          + root_path = "/"
          + url       = "https://github.com/evoxmusic/ShortMe-URL-Shortener.git"
        }
      + id                    = (known after apply)
      + max_running_instances = 1
      + memory                = 256
      + min_running_instances = 1
      + name                  = "backend"
      + ports                 = [
          + {
              + external_port       = 443
              + id                  = (known after apply)
              + internal_port       = 3333
              + protocol            = "HTTP"
              + publicly_accessible = true
            },
        ]
      + state                 = "RUNNING"
    }

  # qovery_cluster.my_test_cluster will be created
  + resource "qovery_cluster" "my_test_cluster" {
      + cloud_provider    = "AWS"
      + cpu               = 2000
      + credentials_id    = "a4063773-c5f9-4377-a704-a803b1d67d63"
      + description       = "Welcome in the TerraWorld"
      + id                = (known after apply)
      + max_running_nodes = 10
      + memory            = 8192
      + min_running_nodes = 3
      + name              = "romaric test AWS cluster"
      + organization_id   = "<hidden>"
      + region            = "eu-west-3"
      + state             = "RUNNING"
    }

  # qovery_database.psql will be created
  + resource "qovery_database" "psql" {
      + accessibility  = "PRIVATE"
      + cpu            = 500
      + environment_id = (known after apply)
      + id             = (known after apply)
      + memory         = 256
      + mode           = "MANAGED"
      + name           = "psql"
      + state          = "RUNNING"
      + storage        = 10240
      + type           = "POSTGRESQL"
      + version        = "13"
    }

  # qovery_environment.dev will be created
  + resource "qovery_environment" "dev" {
      + cluster_id            = (known after apply)
      + environment_variables = [
        ]
      + id                    = (known after apply)
      + mode                  = "DEVELOPMENT"
      + name                  = "dev"
      + project_id            = (known after apply)
    }

  # qovery_project.proj_test will be created
  + resource "qovery_project" "proj_test" {
      + description           = (known after apply)
      + environment_variables = [
        ]
      + id                    = (known after apply)
      + name                  = "TestProj"
      + organization_id       = "67df37d8-6139-42eb-8c60-452395d1c2ab"
    }

Plan: 5 to add, 0 to change, 0 to destroy.
qovery_cluster.my_test_cluster: Creating...
qovery_cluster.my_test_cluster: Still creating... [10s elapsed]
qovery_cluster.my_test_cluster: Still creating... [20s elapsed]
//...
qovery_cluster.my_test_cluster: Still creating... [17m50s elapsed]
qovery_cluster.my_test_cluster: Still creating... [18m0s elapsed]
qovery_cluster.my_test_cluster: Creation complete after 18m1s [id=b592bd58-06c6-4ea0-8bc2-4f95fec6ee57]
qovery_project.proj_test: Creating...
qovery_project.proj_test: Creation complete after 0s [id=346acd53-4ce2-4f00-b965-986dea9d0d78]
qovery_environment.dev: Creating...
qovery_environment.dev: Creation complete after 1s [id=c8dcd84f-845f-4343-8077-4cd5ca9c0721]
qovery_database.psql: Creating...
qovery_database.psql: Still creating... [10s elapsed]
qovery_database.psql: Still creating... [20s elapsed]
//...
qovery_database.psql: Still creating... [15m0s elapsed]
qovery_database.psql: Still creating... [15m10s elapsed]
qovery_database.psql: Creation complete after 1m10s [id=576f2a97-e5d8-49d0-a2a4-5f11df7e3780]
qovery_application.backend: Creating...
qovery_application.backend: Still creating... [10s elapsed]
qovery_application.backend: Still creating... [20s elapsed]
//...
qovery_application.backend: Still creating... [4m11s elapsed]
qovery_application.backend: Still creating... [4m21s elapsed]
qovery_application.backend: Creation complete after 4m23s [id=56cf6283-ccda-4c34-b875-c76bcb0dfadf]

Apply complete! Resources: 5 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed.

So, if we take a closer look at the terraform output we see that we have some resources that are taking more time than the others.

qovery_cluster.my_test_cluster (15 min)

This resource represents the AWS VPC and EKS creation and it takes approximately 12 to 15 minutes to create the AWS VPC.

qovery_database.psql (15 min)

This one represents the AWS RDS instance. Behind the scene, Qovery enables backup, encryption, Point In Time Recovery, and all the things that can save your back in case of data loss. We can speed up the Postgres deployment time by switching to a "container" instance instead of a "managed" one. But here, I wanted to show how long in total it takes with an RDS one.

qovery_application.backend (4 min)

This step includes:

1. The fetch of my app from GitHub (link here).
2. The build with Buildpacks.
3. The push in my ECR registry.
4. The deployment of my app on my AWS EKS (Kubernetes) cluster.
5. The domain and the TLS attached to my app.

It is a lot of small steps inside, but it's rather fast compared to the steps before.

Show me the result!

Here is the final result 😍

My app and database are running on my EKS cluster "romaric test aws cluster"

I can even watch my app logs in real time

And this is my app accessible via a temporary domain and a TLS 😎

I hope you liked it :)