Building an AWS Content Delivery Stack with Terraform
This series covers building an AWS content delivery stack using Terraform. We'll walk through each component: networking, compute, content delivery, and security services.
What You'll Learn
Throughout this series, we'll explore:
Networking Fundamentals: VPC design, subnet architecture, NAT gateways, and flow logs
Load Balancing: Application Load Balancers (ALB) with HTTPS and custom domains
Container Image Builds: Docker image creation, CI/CD pipelines, and GHCR integration
Container Orchestration: ECS Fargate services for web and API workloads
Content Delivery: CloudFront CDN configuration and optimization
Security: AWS WAF rules, rate limiting, and security group best practices
Storage: S3 buckets for static assets and logging
Infrastructure as Code: Terraform modules, validation, and best practices
The Project
This series covers multiple repositories:
terraform-aws-content-delivery-stack - Infrastructure as Code with Terraform modules for VPC, ALB, ECS, CloudFront, WAF, and S3
geomag-web-image - Docker image for the web dashboard frontend (nginx-based)
geomag-api-image - Docker image for the API service (FastAPI-based)
Architecture Overview
The stack we'll build includes:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CloudFront CDN │
│ (Global Edge Locations) │
└────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────┘
│
▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ AWS WAF │
│ (Rate Limiting & Security Rules) │
└────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────┘
│
┌───────────┴───────────┐
│ │
▼ ▼
┌─────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────┐
│ Web ALB │ │ API ALB │
│ (Port 443) │ │ (Port 443) │
└────────┬────────┘ └────────┬────────┘
│ │
▼ ▼
┌─────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────┐
│ ECS Fargate │ │ ECS Fargate │
│ Web Service │ │ API Service │
└─────────────────┘ └─────────────────┘
│ │
└───────────┬───────────┘
│
┌───────────▼───────────┐
│ VPC │
│ (Public/Private │
│ Subnets, NAT) │
└──────────────────────┘
│
┌───────────▼───────────┐
│ S3 Buckets │
│ (Static Assets & │
│ Access Logs) │
└──────────────────────┘
Prerequisites
Before diving in, you should have:
- Basic understanding of AWS services (VPC, EC2, S3, CloudFront)
- Terraform fundamentals (variables, modules, resources)
- AWS CLI configured with appropriate credentials
Series Structure
This series will be organized into focused articles, with each major topic broken down into multiple detailed articles:
Part 1: Introduction
Introduction & Overview (this article)
Part 2: VPC Architecture & Networking
Understanding Amazon VPC - Overview and Fundamentals - VPC basics, isolation, subnets, NAT gateways, and Flow Logs
VPC Design & CIDR Planning - VPC creation, CIDR block selection, and IP address allocation
Subnet Architecture - Public and private subnets, availability zone distribution, and subnet sizing
NAT Gateways & Internet Gateways - Outbound internet access, NAT gateway placement, and cost optimization
VPC Flow Logs & Network Monitoring - Flow log configuration, log analysis, and network troubleshooting
Part 3: Application Load Balancers
ALB Basics & Target Groups - Load balancer creation, target group configuration, and health checks
HTTPS Setup with ACM - SSL/TLS certificates, ACM integration, and certificate validation
Listener Rules & Path-Based Routing - Request routing, path-based rules, and host-based routing
Part 4: Container Image Builds
Dockerfile Optimization - Multi-stage builds, layer caching, and image size optimization
CI/CD with GitHub Actions - Automated builds, testing, and workflow configuration
GitHub Container Registry Integration - GHCR setup, image pushing, and authentication
Image Security & Scanning - Vulnerability scanning, base image selection, and security best practices
Part 5: ECS Fargate Services
ECS Cluster Setup - Cluster creation, capacity providers, and cluster configuration
Task Definitions - Container definitions, resource allocation, and environment variables
ECS Service Configuration - Service creation, load balancer integration, and service discovery
Auto-Scaling & Capacity Management - Target tracking, scaling policies, and capacity planning
IAM Roles & Permissions - Task execution roles, task roles, and security policies
Part 6: CloudFront CDN
CloudFront Distribution Setup - Distribution creation, origin configuration, and behavior settings
Caching Strategies - Cache policies, TTL configuration, and cache invalidation
Custom Error Pages & Behaviors - Error handling, custom responses, and origin failover
CloudFront Access Logging - Log configuration, S3 integration, and log analysis
Part 7: AWS WAF Configuration
WAF Basics & Rule Groups - Web ACL creation, managed rule groups, and rule priorities
Rate Limiting & DDoS Protection - Rate-based rules, IP reputation, and bot protection
Custom Rules & Conditions - Rule creation, condition matching, and action configuration
WAF Logging & Monitoring - Log delivery to S3, log analysis, and security monitoring
Part 8: S3 Integration
Static Asset Bucket - Bucket creation, static website hosting, and CloudFront origin
Log Buckets & Lifecycle Policies - Log storage, lifecycle transitions, and cost optimization
Bucket Policies & Access Control - IAM policies, bucket policies, and CORS configuration
Part 9: Custom Domains & Route53
Route53 Hosted Zones - DNS zone creation, record types, and DNS configuration
ACM Certificate Management - Certificate request, validation, and renewal
DNS & Certificate Integration - ALB and CloudFront custom domain setup
Part 10: Cost Optimization
NAT Gateway Optimization - Single vs. multi-AZ NAT, cost analysis, and alternatives
CloudFront Price Classes - Price class selection and data transfer optimization
Log Retention & Lifecycle Management - Log retention strategies and storage optimization
Part 11: Monitoring & Troubleshooting
CloudWatch Setup - Log groups, metrics, and dashboards
Alarms & Notifications - Alarm configuration, SNS integration, and alerting
Troubleshooting Common Issues - ECS task failures, ALB health check failures, and CloudFront caching issues
Part 12: Advanced Topics
Multi-Region Deployment - Cross-region replication, failover, and global distribution
Disaster Recovery - Backup strategies, recovery procedures, and RTO/RPO planning
Performance Optimization - Connection pooling, keep-alive, and performance tuning
Getting Started
To follow along with this series:
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/jajera/terraform-aws-content-delivery-stack.git
cd terraform-aws-content-delivery-stack
# Explore the structure
ls -la
What's Next?
In the next article, we'll start with the foundation: Understanding Amazon VPC - Overview and Fundamentals. We'll cover:
- What Amazon VPC is and its purpose
- VPC fundamentals: CIDR blocks, IP addressing, and network isolation
- Public and private subnets: use cases, routing, and security implications
- NAT Gateways: how they enable outbound internet access for private resources
- VPC Flow Logs: network traffic monitoring and troubleshooting
This overview provides the essential concepts before we dive into implementation details in subsequent articles.
The repository contains the complete code and examples.
Repositories:
terraform-aws-content-delivery-stack - Infrastructure code
geomag-web-image - Web dashboard container image
geomag-api-image - API service container image