Deploying a network load-balanced logbook app

In this tutorial, you deploy an example logbook app that uses Node.js for its frontend and MySQL for its backend. At the end of the tutorial, your deployment has the following resources:

Network load-balanced deployment resources (click to enlarge)

If you are new to Deployment Manager, see the Quickstart or the Step-by-Step Guide tutorials.

Before you begin

Creating your resource templates

This example launches a deployment that contains a variety of Google Cloud resources. To start, you create templates that define these resources separately. Later, you call these templates in your final configuration. Your deployment contains these resources:

  • A Compute Engine instance that hosts a MySQL database for the app.
  • An instance template for frontend instances, which uses a Docker image for the Node.js app.
  • A managed instance group, which uses the instance template to create two frontend instances.
  • An autoscaler, which starts or stops additional frontend instances based on incoming traffic.
  • A health check, which checks whether the frontend instances are available to do work.
  • A network load balancer with a forwarding rule.
  • A target pool for the managed instance group.

Creating the template for the MySQL backend

The backend of this app is a single Compute Engine instance running a MySQL Docker container. The container_vm.py template defines a Compute Engine instance that can run Docker containers. To ensure that the template follows the correct structure and contains all of the required properties, you also need a schema file.

Copy the template below, or download it from the GitHub repository:

# Copyright 2016 Google Inc. All rights reserved.
#
# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
# You may obtain a copy of the License at
#
#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
#
# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
# limitations under the License.

"""Creates a Container VM with the provided Container manifest."""

from container_helper import GenerateManifest


COMPUTE_URL_BASE = 'https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/'


def GlobalComputeUrl(project, collection, name):
  return ''.join([COMPUTE_URL_BASE, 'projects/', project,
                  '/global/', collection, '/', name])


def ZonalComputeUrl(project, zone, collection, name):
  return ''.join([COMPUTE_URL_BASE, 'projects/', project,
                  '/zones/', zone, '/', collection, '/', name])


def GenerateConfig(context):
  """Generate configuration."""

  base_name = context.env['name']

  # Properties for the container-based instance.
  instance = {
      'zone': context.properties['zone'],
      'machineType': ZonalComputeUrl(context.env['project'],
                                     context.properties['zone'],
                                     'machineTypes',
                                     'f1-micro'),
      'metadata': {
          'items': [{
              'key': 'gce-container-declaration',
              'value': GenerateManifest(context)
              }]
          },
      'disks': [{
          'deviceName': 'boot',
          'type': 'PERSISTENT',
          'autoDelete': True,
          'boot': True,
          'initializeParams': {
              'diskName': base_name + '-disk',
              'sourceImage': GlobalComputeUrl('cos-cloud',
                                              'images',
                                              context.properties[
                                                  'containerImage'])
              },
          }],
      'networkInterfaces': [{
          'accessConfigs': [{
              'name': 'external-nat',
              'type': 'ONE_TO_ONE_NAT'
              }],
          'network': GlobalComputeUrl(context.env['project'],
                                      'networks',
                                      'default')
          }],
        'serviceAccounts': [{
            'email': 'default',
            'scopes': ['https://www.googleapis.com/auth/logging.write']
            }]
      }

  # Resources to return.
  resources = {
      'resources': [{
          'name': base_name,
          'type': 'compute.v1.instance',
          'properties': instance
          }]
      }

  return resources

Download the schema file for the template.

The template has some undefined properties, such as containerImage, which are defined in later templates.

When you use container images on Compute Engine instances, you also need to provide a manifest file that describes which container image to use. Create a helper method called container_helper.py to dynamically define the container manifest:

# Copyright 2016 Google Inc. All rights reserved.
#
# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
# You may obtain a copy of the License at
#
#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
#
# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
# limitations under the License.

"""Helper methods for working with containers in config."""

import six
import yaml


def GenerateManifest(context):
  """Generates a Container Manifest given a Template context.

  Args:
    context: Template context, which must contain dockerImage and port
        properties, and an optional dockerEnv property.

  Returns:
    A Container Manifest as a YAML string.
  """
  env_list = []
  if 'dockerEnv' in context.properties:
    for key, value in six.iteritems(context.properties['dockerEnv']):
      env_list.append({'name': key, 'value': str(value)})

  manifest = {
      'apiVersion': 'v1',
      'kind': 'Pod',
      'metadata': {
          'name': str(context.env['name'])
          },
      'spec': {
          'containers': [{