Deploying Node.js Application with AWS Elastic Beanstalk: A Beginner's Guide

Why Elastic Beanstalk?

We recently spent our semester learning Node.js frameworks, and I'm curious about deploying and managing applications in the cloud. Surprisingly, recently, I got into an AWS mentorship program, and we got this activity to create technical documentation while exploring AWS service. It's overwhelming for me since there are many configuration options to consider, like monitoring, load balancers, the EC2 instances and more, and by that, I'm finding a service that can handle the infrastructure complexity for me, and that's the thing I find out on AWS Elastic Beanstalk.

What We'll Build

In this, I'll show you how to deploy a simple Node.js Todo list application using AWS Elastic Beanstalk. I'll focus on the basics to get you started.

Prerequisites

Make sure you have first:

• An AWS account


• Git installed to clone the sample repository

Getting Started:

You can clone my sample Node.js Todo list application from here:

git clone https://github.com/KierFR-clean/todo_nodeapp.git

1.Create the EB Environment.

• Put the desired name for the application; choose this from the platform options.

If importing, create a zip folder of all files from the project and exclude node_modules and others.

• Review all the settings, click submit, and wait for the environment creation.




• After creation, you can access the environment using the domain link.

If you encounter 404 errors, follow these steps to fix them.

• Check the application logs.




• Check also the static file paths.




• Ensure all needed files is included in the zip file.

Here is the application's look: It's a simple ToDo list app using in-memory storage only, and I plan to add a proper database while I explore more with AWS Elastic Beanstalk.

Conclusion

AWS Elastic Beanstalk makes Node.js application deployment much simpler. Although I've only covered the basics, I hope this beginner's perspective helps you start your deployments. In future posts, I will improve this application with a proper database and explore more advanced production features.

This post is part of my learning journey with AWS. If you found it helpful, consider following me on my cloud development journey!🚀