Build a Serverless AWS CI/CD Deployment Pipeline

DEV Community

Neon Snake: Building a Serverless CI/CD Deployment Pipeline Using AWS

Modern software development requires reliable, scalable, and automated deployment processes. Manual deployment can be time-consuming, error-prone, and difficult to maintain. This project, titled Neon Snake: Serverless CI/CD Pipeline, demonstrates how AWS services can work together to automate application deployment. The solution uses Amazon S3, AWS Lambda, AWS Systems Manager (SSM), Amazon EC2, and Nginx to deploy a web-based Snake game automatically whenever a new application package is uploaded to an S3 bucket. The primary objective is to eliminate manual server access during deployment while providing a simple, event-driven deployment architecture. Keywords: AWS, Serverless Computing, CI/CD, Amazon S3, AWS Lambda, Systems Manager, EC2, Nginx, Automation. 1. Introduction Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) are important practices in modern software engineering. They help development teams deliver application updates more efficiently and consistently. Traditional deployment processes often require developers to connect to servers, manually transfer application files, extract packages, and restart web services. The Neon Snake project addresses these challenges by implementing an automated deployment workflow using AWS cloud services. Instead of manually accessing the EC2 server, developers simply upload a ZIP package containing the application files to Amazon S3. This upload automatically triggers a Lambda function, which communicates with the target EC2 instance through AWS Systems Manager. The EC2 instance then downloads the application package, extracts the files into the Nginx web directory, and restarts the web server. 2. Project Objectives The main objectives of this project are: Automate application deployment using AWS services. Implement an event-driven architecture using Amazon S3 and Lambda. Use AWS Systems Manager to execute commands remotely on EC2. Deploy a web application using Nginx. Implement IAM roles for secure service communication. Reduce manual server administration. Demonstrate a practical cloud-based CI/CD workflow. 3. Technologies and AWS Services Used 3.1 Amazon S3 Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) is used as the artifact storage location. The project creates a bucket named neon-snake-artifacts- in the US East (N. Virginia) region. Developers upload the application package, game.zip, to this bucket. The creation of a new object generates an event that triggers the deployment process. 3.2 AWS Lambda AWS Lambda acts as the deployment automation engine. The project uses a Lambda function named SnakeDeployer, written in Python. Its responsibilities include: Receiving S3 event notifications. Identifying the uploaded bucket and object key. Creating deployment commands. Sending commands to the target EC2 instance through Systems Manager. This approach eliminates the need for a continuously running deployment server. 3.3 AWS Systems Manager (SSM) AWS Systems Manager provides secure remote command execution. The Lambda function uses the SSM SendCommand API with the AWS-RunShellScript document. The SSM Agent installed on the EC2 instance communicates with Systems Manager through outbound HTTPS connections, receives the deployment instructions, and executes them. 3.4 Amazon EC2 Amazon EC2 provides the computing environment that hosts the Neon Snake game. The project uses: Instance name: NeonSnakeServer Operating system: Amazon Linux 2023 Instance type: t3.micro Web server: Nginx HTTP access: Enabled The EC2 instance is configured with an IAM instance profile so that it can communicate with Systems Manager and download application files from S3. 3.5 Nginx Nginx is used as the web server. The extracted game files are placed in: /usr/share/nginx/html Nginx serves these files to users through HTTP. 3.6 AWS IAM Identity and Access Management (IAM) provides the permissions required for secure communication between AWS services. Two IAM roles are created: EC2 Role: iam_role_snake_serve...

Powered by Readybot.io