Run a Controlled Deploy With AWS Elastic Beanstalk
Lab Overview
One of the highest risk parts of running a software company, in terms of availability concerns, is the risk of a faulty deployment. During deployments, complex systems with multiple parts are actively moving around the delicate parts of many other systems. Deployment risk can be minimized by studying a couple of common approaches to deploying code to running machines.
In this lab, you will deploy multiple version updates of an application in a load-balanced and auto-scaled environment. The first update is deployed using a simple, low-friction rolling deployment. The second update is deployed using a blue-green deployment where a separate environment is created to run the new version of the application and a DNS cutover switches incoming traffic to the new environment.
Lab Objectives
Upon completion of this lab, you will be able to:
- Build Elastic Beanstalk applications and environments
- Perform rolling deployments on underlying EC2 resources
- Perform blue-green deployments with Elastic Beanstalk for zero-downtime updates
- Minimize costs by cleaning up after blue-green deploys
Lab Prerequisites
You should be familiar with:
- Basic Amazon EC2 and Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) concepts
- The topics covered in the Advanced Deployment Techniques on AWS course are beneficial, but not required
Lab Environment
Before completing the lab instructions, the environment will look as follows:
After completing the lab instructions, the environment should look similar to:
Updates
April 25th, 2023 - Updated the instructions and screenshot to reflect the latest UI
April 21st, 2023 - Resolved Elastic Beanstalk app creation error
April 5th, 2023 - Added note regarding todo notes
March 27th, 2023 - Resolved Elastic Beanstalk app & environment creation error
March 6th, 2023 - Updated network settings for AWS Elastic Beanstalk application
January 19th, 2023 - Added screenshot to support instructions
July 18th, 2022 - Updated the instructions and screenshots to reflect the latest UI
June 23rd, 2021 - Provided warning label for EB application creation lab step and updated any ambiguous screenshot associated
May 10th, 2021 - Resolved an issue where the AWS console stalled creating the Elastic Beanstalk service role
February 12th. 2021 - Updated the lab to resolve a permission issue
February 9th, 2021 - Added lab step explaining cost considerations
January 29th, 2021 - Update instructions to handle options being greyed out until page is refreshed
June 1st, 2020 - Fix an issue causing v3 of the app to fail to deploy correctly
May 29th, 2020 - Updated some screenshots to account for an updated Beanstalk UI
May 26th, 2020 - Updated the Node.js deployment packages to allow for successful deployments to AWS Beanstalk
April 10th, 2020 - Updated the instructions and screenshots due to the new Elastic Beanstalk UI
October 17th, 2019 - Updated the creation of the environment instructions
July 19th, 2019 - Improved the validation lab Step to further check the work you perform in the lab
January 10th, 2019 - Added a validation lab Step to check the work you perform in the lab
October 17th, 2018 - Adapted the lab to use an Application Load Balancer (the new default) rather than a Classic Load Balancer
September 6th, 2018 - Improved instructions clarity and updated screenshots to the most recent Elastic Beanstalk interface
April 29th, 2018 - Complete update (easier to follow instructions and screenshots for the new Elastic Beanstalk UI)
Logan has been involved in software development and research since 2007 and has been in the cloud since 2012. He is an AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional, AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional, Microsoft Certified Azure Solutions Architect Expert, MCSE: Cloud Platform and Infrastructure, Google Cloud Certified Associate Cloud Engineer, Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS), Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA), Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD), and Certified OpenStack Administrator (COA). He earned his Ph.D. studying design automation and enjoys all things tech.