Real-World Challenge: E-commerce MVP in Record Time

In the fast-paced world of e-commerce, time is of the essence. Businesses must launch Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) swiftly to capture market opportunities and validate their concepts. This blog post explores how we achieved this using Terraform and Ansible to rapidly deploy an e-commerce platform on AWS, specifically focusing on a Magento-based store.

DevOps Approach: Terraform and Ansible as Key Tools

Adopting a DevOps approach, we leveraged Terraform for infrastructure provisioning and Ansible for software configuration and installation. This combination of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and Configuration Management tools allowed us to automate the entire deployment process, ensuring consistency, scalability, and speed.

Step-by-Step Implementation

Account and Key Creation in Magento Marketplace

  1. Create a Magento Marketplace Account:
    • Navigate to the Magento Marketplace website and create an account.
    • Verify your email address to activate the account.
  2. Generate Access Keys:
    • Log in to the Magento Marketplace.
    • Go to “My Profile” > “Access Keys”.
    • Create a new set of keys and note them down. These keys will be used for software installation.

Infrastructure Provisioning with Terraform on AWS

  1. Set Up Terraform Environment:
    • Install Terraform on your local machine.
    • Configure AWS credentials to allow Terraform to manage resources.
  2. Write Terraform Configuration Files:
    • Define the AWS resources needed, such as EC2 instances, VPCs, subnets, and security groups.

Example configuration for an EC2 instance:

provider “aws” {

  region = “us-west-2”

}

resource “aws_instance” “magento” {

  ami           = “ami-0abcdef1234567890”

  instance_type = “t2.medium”

  tags = {

    Name = “Magento-Server”

  }

}

  1. Initialize and Apply Terraform Configuration:
    • Run terraform init to initialize the working directory.
    • Run terraform apply to create the defined infrastructure on AWS.

Software Configuration and Installation with Ansible

  1. Set Up Ansible Environment:
    • Install Ansible on your local machine.
  2. Create Ansible Playbooks:
    • Define tasks for installing and configuring Magento on the EC2 instances.

Example playbook for Magento installation:

– hosts: magento

  become: yes

  tasks:

    – name: Update apt repository

      apt:

        update_cache: yes

    – name: Install Apache

      apt:

        name: apache2

        state: present

    – name: Install PHP and required extensions

      apt:

        name: “{{ item }}”

        state: present

      with_items:

        – php

        – php-mysql

        – php-xml

        – php-curl

    – name: Download Magento

      shell: wget https://example.com/magento.tar.gz -O /tmp/magento.tar.gz

    – name: Extract Magento

      unarchive:

        src: /tmp/magento.tar.gz

        dest: /var/www/html/

        remote_src: yes

  1. Execute Ansible Playbooks:
    • Use the command ansible-playbook -i inventory magento.yml to run the playbook and set up Magento on the server.

Result: The Cloud Bootcamp Store Live and Operational

Following the above steps, we successfully deployed a fully functional Magento-based e-commerce store, Cloud Bootcamp Store, on AWS. The store was live and operational within a concise timeframe, demonstrating the efficiency and power of automation tools in accelerating cloud projects.

Conclusion: The Power of Automation for Agile Cloud Projects

Automation with Terraform and Ansible significantly reduces deployment time and minimizes human error, ensuring a consistent and reliable infrastructure setup. This agile approach is invaluable for businesses aiming to launch e-commerce platforms quickly and effectively, staying ahead in the competitive market.

References

Automate Ansible playbook deployment with Amazon EC2 and GitHub

Magento Adobe Commerce on AWS—Terraform module