This how to article is aimed to lead you through the Node.js installation, management, and scaling in the Australian cloud hosting platform.

So firstly let’s set up your environment via Topology Wizard: switch to the Node.js tab, select the engine version, choose SQL or NoSQL database, specify disk limit, set up IPv4 if needed and specify vertical and horizontal auto scaling.

Before creating your environment, you can preview the estimated costs for hosting (hourly, daily, monthly rate) as well as check the cost in lowest and highest app load.

Deploy Node.js Application

Within the Cloudlets Platform the deployment process is automated using:

• application archive uploaded from the local machine or via external URL
• remote VCS repository (e.g. GitHub)

Node.js Package and Process Managers

Each NodeJS application server contains a built-in development tool that provides automation of the installation, update, configuration, and removal processes.

The platform provides two types of package managers:

• npm - manages your project requirements by installing the additional modules, packages, and ready-to-use applications
• yarn - operates the same requirements as in npm providing higher speed, reliability, and convenience

Process Managers helps to control your app lifecycle, monitor running services and maintain operability:

• npm - initiates and configures multiple processes
• pm2 - provides variety of management and process monitoring features
• forever - enables continuous running of your Node.js processes with an automatic restart in case of failure
• supervisor - monitors running apps and automatically restarts to keep them updated.

Node.js Domain Management

Whilst the environment creation your Node.js application receives the default domain name, which can be easily changed for the custom one. You can set it up choosing one of the available options:

• CNAME redirect for dev and test environments
• DNS A Record for production environments

Cloudlets also provides a possibility to smoothly switch traffic between your environments without downtime via swap domains functionality.

Automatic Vertical Scaling

Due to the automatic resources allocation, required for your application's high performance and availability, you don’t need to overpay for unused or extra resources. Win-win auto scaling saves your time, eliminating the need to handle the load-related adjustments or complicated architectural changes.

To benefit to the fullest from auto scaling in the cloud, all you have to do is just to set the upper cloudlets limit for your NodeJS application server and everything else will be handled by platform.

Manual Horizontal Scaling

In order to scale in or out your NodeJS app server, just set the number of nodes within the Horizontal Scaling section in the topology wizard. You can also adjust the scaling mode:

• Stateless scaling is a simultaneous creation of nodes from the base image template
• Stateful scaling is a sequential creation of new nodes with file system and all custom configurations copied from the initial master container

Automatic Horizontal Scaling

In order to set up the automatic increase or decrease the number of nodes due to your Node.js application load, you have to click the environment Settings, then select Monitoring and choose Auto Horizontal Scaling section.

And now you can easily configure the scaling condition.

Now you are aware of the main peculiarities of Node.js cloud hosting within the Australian-based platform Cloudlets.

Create or import your own environment for free - register at cloudlets.com.au and test drive the platform.

Drupal is content management software that celebrates 20 years anniversary. Drupal provides easy content authoring, reliable performance, excellent security, and flexibility for building the versatile, structured content to meet dynamic web experiences.

Within this guide we’ll describe how to easily install Drupal in the cloud using automatic or manual installation within an intuitive UI.

Drupal Automatic Deployment

Sign in (or register free) to the dashboard platform.

Open the Marketplace and find Drupal within the Content Management section.

Put the name for your environment and click Install.

In less than a minute a new environment with Apache PHP application server and MySQL CE 5.7 database will be automatically created with the latest Drupal application version.

So that’s all, you get your Drupal up and running just in a single button click, automatically.

Drupal Manual Installation

And now let’s check how to get your Drupal CMS application in the cloud via manual installation.

Create an Environment

1. Click the New Environment button at the top left corner.

2. Within the opened topology wizard, switch to the PHP tab and choose the required application server and database stacks (we chose Apache PHP and MySQL here).

Define the required parameters and click Create.

3. Like in the case of automatic deployment, this type of installation will also be up and running in several seconds. After the environment is ready, click the Config button near the application server.

4. To access and edit the file, In the opened configuration file manager, click the php.ini shortcut in Favorites within the opened config manager. Now let’s adjust several PHP modules to support Drupal installation (use the search to quickly locate the required extension):

• enable extension=gd.so and zend_extension=/usr/lib64/php/modules/opcache.so modules by removing semicolons at the beginning of the line
• disable or comment the mbstring.encoding_translation = On setting

5. Save the changes and Restart Nodes for the Apache server to apply them.

Next, create a dedicated database for your Drupal installation.

MySQL Database Configuration

1. Click Open in Browser near the database node (MySQL in our example).

2. Log in to the admin panel using the credentials from the email. Switch to the User accounts tab and click the Add user account link.

3. Within the opened form, provide User name and Password. Tick the Create database with the same name and grant all privileges check-box. Click Go.

Now let’s deploy the Drupal package.

Drupal Deployment and Installation

1. You can get the latest version of Drupal app package at the official Drupal web-site or deploy it via the direct link: https://www.drupal.org/download-latest/zip

2. Now let’s use the Composer tool (pre-installed for both Apache and NGINX PHP servers) via the Post deployment hook in order to automatically resolve the required dependencies for your project:

cd $WEBROOT/{project_name}

composer install

Replace the {project_name} in code with the context (Path) you’ve set for the project (ROOT by default).

3. Open in Browser your application after the package is deployed.

4. Now let’s move to the installation process. Choose an installation language and profile, then provide the database connection details:

• Database type - choose the appropriate database (MySQL/MariaDB, PostgreSQL or SQLite)
• Database name, Database Username, Database Password - type the credentials, you've used for the database creation in the Configure Database section of this guide
• Advanced Options > Host - link to your database without the protocol part (this data can be found in the appropriate email)

Click Save and continue button to proceed to the automatic installation of the Drupal CMS.

5. Provide your site information (site name, email, admin login/password, etc). Click Save and continue and you will be redirected to the front page of your new site.

Try out to deploy auto scalable Drupal for large enterprise projects with high traffic - simply register at https://www.cloudlets.com.au/ and test drive the platform for free.

In this article, we'll unveil how to install the Ruby environment in the cloud and briefly describe the main Ruby-related possibilities within Cloudlets.

Ruby Environment Installation and Hosting

Let’s check how to set up the hosting of your Ruby environment within the intuitive topology wizard. So, firstly let’s log in to the dashboard (or register free).

Click New Environment

Switch to the Ruby language tab, select the required application server and engine version, add any other software stack required.

You can also adjust other parameters, such as cloudlets (RAM and CPU), disk space, Public IPv4/IPv6, node count, etc.

Click Create and in a couple of minutes your applications will be up and running!

Ruby Application Servers

Cloudlets platform provides Ruby application servers based on the Apache and NGINX software stacks, configured to utilize the Ruby on Rails framework for implementing web applications and the Passenger application server by default.

If required, you can easily configure the NGINX Ruby stack to work with different inbuilt servers, such as Passenger, Puma, and Unicorn.

Ruby Versioning

You can select the required version of Ruby during the environment creation or adjust it for the running instances via container redeployment:

• 2.5.8
• 2.6.6
• 2.7.1
• 2.7.2

Ruby Application Deployment

The platform automates the deployment process for the managed Apache Ruby and NGINX Ruby application servers using:

• application archive uploaded from the local machine or via external URL
• remote VCS repository (e.g. GitHub)

When deploying a Ruby application, only a single context (ROOT) can be used. You can also select from three Deployment Types (i.e. RAILS_ENV) for it:

• development - reloads all application classes and turns off caching (allows a faster development cycle)
• production - turns on all caching
• test - wipes out database between test runs

If needed, you can switch between the Ruby deployment types via the appropriate drop-down list next to your application.

Ruby Dependency Management

Ruby instances within Cloudlets are provided with the Bundler dependency manager, so that you can automatically track and install the required gems and versions. In case your project has a Gemfile file in the root folder, it will automatically resolve dependencies with Bundler after deployment to the server, so that you wouldn't have to perform any manual intervention.

You can also include any Ruby framework into your Gemfile or utilize Ruby on Rails, which is available by default.

Domains Management

You can easily set a custom domain name for your Ruby application instead of the default one. Based on the environment topology, you should use:

• CNAME redirect in case of using the Shared Load Balancer (for dev and test environments)
• DNS A Record if using Public IP(for production environments)

You can switch traffic from one environment to another without downtime via Swap domains functionality (Settings > Custom Domains > Swap Domains).

Vertical Auto Scaling

To set up auto scaling for your Ruby server, just define the required cloudlets limit (128 MiB of RAM and 400 MHz of CPU each), and all the rest will be performed by the platform automatically.

Setting up the vertical scaling, you don’t have to worry about the performance of your Ruby apps anymore as well as overpay for hosting. Pay per use approach helps not only save your money, but also saves your time eliminating the need to handle the load-related adjustments or perform architectural changes manually.

Horizontal Scaling: Manual

In order to scale nodes manually within the platform, - refer to the corresponding section in the topology wizard.

You can also choose between two scaling modes - Stateless (simultaneously creates all new nodes from the base image template) and Stateful (sequentially copies file system of the master container into the new nodes).

Automatic Horizontal Scaling

Cloudlets provides a possibility to configure automatic horizontal scaling for Ruby environments through tunable triggers, which monitor the changes in the nodes load and increase or decrease their number.

To set it up, access the environment Settings > Monitoring > Auto Horizontal Scaling section, define the layer (Load Balancer, Application Server) and resource to be monitored (CPU, RAM, Network, Disk I/O, Disk IOPS).

Set the exact condition and specifics of scaling

Everytime the application load is changed, the platform will automatically add or remove nodes within your settings, sending you the corresponding email notifications.

That’s all - now you are aware of the main peculiarities of Ruby cloud hosting at Australian platform Cloudlets.com.au.

To try out the unparalleled performance, enjoy auto scaling and cost efficiency, - just register for a free trial.

To get up and running WildFly standalone server in a container is pretty easy, but in case you need to enable clustering in Managed Domain mode (which is one of the key features of Java EE) is not so fast and simple.

A great variety of mission-critical and large-scale applications (banking and billing for example) are still running on Java EE in VMs. Integrated Java EE clustering provides functionality that people are interested in, including high-availability and automated deployment among distributed Java application servers.

WildFly Managed Domain

Within Cloudlets platform it is possible to easily install an embedded Auto-Clustering for WildFly that is enabled by default.

This solution provides a possibility to automatically interconnect the multiple application servers upon the environment topology change, which implements the commonly used clustering configuration in managed domain mode.

And below we’ll show how standalone WildFly can be transformed into the cluster by means of a simple horizontal scaling with no manual configurations. We’ll also describe infrastructure topology specifics and the way to get the appropriate development and production environments up and running inside the cloud.

Create Standalone WildFly

So let's login to the dashboard and open the topology wizard:

1. Create a new environment

• Choose a proper version of WildFly
• Set up vertical scaling limits
• Change the name of your environment (e.g. wildfly)

Click Create.

In a few seconds you will receive an email confirmation of environment creation with the credentials to the Admin Panel.

2. Now, deploy the application to the just provisioned standalone server.

Click Deploy.

Make sure that your application is up and running, pressing Open in browser near the created environment.

If you log in to your container via built-in Web SSH client, you’ll see only one running process of standalone server.

Clustered WildFly with Managed Domain Mode

WildFly clustering with domain mode is configured automatically by means of horizontal scaling. The servers can be scaled manually or automatically.

• Manually

Add new servers via wizard while creating the environment or by changing its topology.

Go to the application server layer, and add (+) nodes within the Horizontal Scaling frame.

• Automatically

The number of servers can be changed automatically by setting up scaling triggers based on the resource consumption within Settings > Auto Horizontal Scaling.

After the scaling is completed, all WildFly instances will join the cluster, working in operation mode of WildFly Managed Domain. Domain Controller and Load Balancer are added automatically as required components of the cluster.

Upon this scaling, the previously deployed application is also automatically redeployed to the rest of WildFly instances of the cluster. Also, database connection pool configurations and other config customizations, previously made via WildFly admin console, are replicated across the whole application server layer.

You can check how WildFly topology is changed from standalone mode to managed domain cluster:

Worker Nodes run 3 processes instead of one as it was in standalone mode:

• Process Controller
• Host Controller
• Worker Server

And Domain Controller node has two processes running:

• Process Controller
• Host Controller

Also, the topology changes are synchronized and shown within WildFly Admin Panel.

So you get a ready-to-use WildFly cluster that can be scaled out and in, making hosting of your applications extremely flexible and cost-effective.

Application Availability among Workers

The application deployed to the standalone server is redeployed to all server instances during transformation to the cluster. To check this you can click Open in browser at each Worker.

Also, you can make sure that the cluster provides high availability. For this, press Restart node button for one or even two nodes and try to access your application via Open in browser for the whole cluster.

The application will be up and running without any interruptions.

Cloning Cluster in Domain Mode

When releasing new application version or just applying some essential adjustments, it’s a good practice to check how the newly implemented changes could affect the service work. You can perform such testing ‘on-fly’ (i.e. without service downtime) with the Clone Environment option.

A cloned environment is a ready-to-work cluster copy with all the required modifications already applied. The newly provisioned Domain Controller node operates with the appropriate cloned Workers, which are already listed within its admin panel. And the application from the original environment is deployed to the cloned one. Thus, the only thing that remains is to recheck your application’s code and custom server configurations for the hardcoded IPs/domains and fix them accordingly (if there are any issues).

This way, you can apply the implied changes to your environment copy without affecting the actual production.

Summary

There is no need to rebuild the whole application architecture in order to gain the required outcome from both managed domain mode and container technology. Try out the easiest way of creation our own WildFly cluster with Cloudlets - just register for free and enjoy the high availability, auto scaling, and unparalleled local hosting service.

WordPress standalone or clusterized installation in the cloud is pretty easy, if talking about Cloudlets platform.

But what if you'd like to migrate an existing WordPress environment?

No matter where you currently host your wordpress site we can provide a free migration to the Cloudlets platform. First create your account using the button above. Once you have an account fill out the form on the free copy & test migration page to request your migration, if you need some advice simply email support@cloudlets.com.au.

There are three basic options with regards to your wordpress environment:

• Optimised WordPress environment containing one Nginx container running PHP-FPM and one MySQL CE container. Minimum cost is $11.40 per month.
• Extended WordPress environment containing one Nginx container running PHP-FPM, one MySQL CE container and one Memcached container. Minimum cost is $15.20 per month.
• Clustered WordPress environment containing one Nginx load balancer, two Nginx containers running PHP-FPM, two MySQL CE containers. Minimum cost is $26.60 per month.

Extended WordPress environment provides the best performance with the use of Memcached (and memcached can also be added to the clustered WordPress environment on request).

During the free migration Cloudlets tech team will install the Duplicator plugin to your WordPress installation which will be used for backup creation. In case an installation with Memcached is required, W3 Total Cache will be installed and configured. This may require disabling any competing caching plugins.

NOTE: your existing wordpress installation will not be modified (apart from temporarily installing Duplicator to create the backup as mentioned above).

Once the migration is complete you will be provided a URL you can access the site on the Cloudlets environment so you can compare speeds directly with your current wordpress installation before moving the domain.

Combating Scrapers and Heavy Load Events

Running a popular WordPress site used to be a balancing act. If scrapers hit your website causing hundreds of requests per second your site would slow to a crawl or stop working at all. If a promotion sees an influx of hits from legitimate customers you need infrastructure to be able to handle it. With dynamic cloudlets you have access to extra resources on the fly whenever your site requires them without you doing anything. Cloudlets just handles it for you.

Instead of losing business by being offline, you just pay for the extra resources only when your site actually requires them. Don't risk losing sales by choosing standard hosting services, let us worry about your hosting, so you can work on your sales.

If you don't need any assistance with the migration - check out the Get Started page which has the basic instructions you need to provision your WordPress environment. Don't forget when you provision your environment you choose a cloudlets.com.au URL, once you're happy you can connect your domain to the environment to make it public. You don't even need to purchase your own public IP address (these are available if you really want one), and SSL is enabled FREE of charge at the click of a button.

Would like to try the platform before actively using it? No problem -  you can properly test your WordPress website on Cloudlets without spending a cent. Just register and enjoy full automation, helpful local support and highest availability.

Mezzanine is a powerful, consistent, and flexible content management platform, built using the Django framework. Mezzanine CMS contains a vast number of third-party extensions, widgets, modules, and themes, and can be easily customized to suit customers specific needs:

• WYSIWYG editor with the Drag-and-Drop page ordering and visual content editing
• scheduled publishing
• a broad variety of ready-to-use themes
• rich API
• out-of-the-box Django internationalization, Twitter Bootstrap, Disqus, Akismet spam filter, Twitter feed, and Google Analytics support
• embedded integration with social networks, search engines, SEO functionality, and a huge number of modules

Now let’s go through the guide of Mezzanine hosting at Cloudlets Australia cloud platform.

Create Python Environment

For Mezzanine CMS hosting in the cloud, you`ll need a Python-based application server, so let`s create a new environment with the Apache Python node:

1. Click the New Environment button at the top of the dashboard to access topology wizard.

2. Open the Python tab, where the required Apache Python application server will be selected by default.

Configure the settings, or leave as is for the platform to fulfil the installation by default, type the name of your environment, click Create.

3. Your environment will appear at the dashboard in a moment.

Now, you can proceed to the Mezzanine CMS application deployment.

Mezzanine CMS Automatic Deployment

You can automatically deploy Mezzanine CMS using a specially prepared deployment archive already configured with SQLite database.

1. Add application archive to the deployment manager via the following link:

https://download.jelastic.com/public.php?service=files&t=3d6fa1ed641a044c6a291bbeaa6c333c&download

2. Deploy Mezzanine CMS into the environment with the Apache Python application Server.

3. After successful deployment, click Open in Browser next to your environment.

4. That’s all, your Mezzanine CMS is up and running in just a few minutes!

Start working with your Mezzanine CMS application (the default credentials for the admin panel are - admin/default).

Register for free to try it out and create your own blog posts, datas, product stores, and other types of content.

In this brief guide we’ll unveil how to easily share your cloud environment created at Cloudlets Platform with your team.

First of all, you have to register an account and create or import your environment. In such a case you’ll become an environment Owner and will be able to share it with other Users (specifying corresponding access rights for each of them).

Owners have full control over the environment and can permit a User to change its topology and to access it via SSH.

Users can perform a wide range of actions within a shared environment:

• deploy applications,
• change configurations,
• read log files, view statistics, etc.

The only exception is that they cannot clone an environment.

The charges for the environment are applied only to the Owner.

The environment can be shared with:

• registered Cloudlets accounts
• unregistered emails which will be signed up automatically

Environment Sharing with a Registered Account

To share any of your environments with more Cloudlets users and delegate them appropriate permissions, follow these steps:

1. Open the environment’s Settings.

2. In the Collaboration section, add email of another user account and tick the Change topology / SSH access option if required.

3. Click Save and after it this user will receive an email notification about environment sharing and can start managing it.

Environment Sharing with an Unregistered Account

To share your environment with a user who is not registered, follow the steps from environment sharing with a registered (1-2) and proceed with a next points:

3. Click the Save button. Firstly, you will see this user in the list with custom triangle signs

which means that the invitation was sent. Then, this user will disappear from the list, as technically the environment is not shared with him yet.

4. A user will get an email notification with an invitation to join your collaboration. When the invitation is confirmed, a user will be automatically registered and will receive an email notification with credentials to the Cloudlets account. You will be informed about this confirmation via email.

Note: at this stage, the user is only registered and added to your collaboration, but no environments are shared yet. You will need to perform sharing steps one more time:

• Navigate to Settings > Collaboration
• Add the same Email of a user
• State the permissions by ticking the Change topology/SSH access option
• Save the settings. A user will receive a notification about the shared environment.

Newly registered users will have trial status by default. As a result, the usual trial limitations set by the hosting provider will be applied, and a user will be deactivated after the trial period, unless the account is converted to a paid one.

Detailed info on your account limitations can be found at the Balance > Quotas & Pricing > Account Limits tab.

Manage a Shared Environment

To manage the environments shared by/with you, click the Settings button in the top right corner of the dashboard.

Navigate to Collaboration or Shared by/with Me option (depending on your requirements) and manage the desired settings.

If you are the owner of the environment:
In the Shared by Me option, you can remove access to your environment for any user or limit the permissions by unticking the Change topology/SSH access option.

If you are the user of someone’s environment:
In the Shared with Me option, you can decline from using the shared environment.

Register now at Cloudlets and start working together with other members of your team on your cloud environment.

In order to start working with Cloudlets Platform, you need to create an account.

After sign up, you will receive a confirmation email, so just follow the provided instructions and verify your registration via SMS.

Note: The account activation link within the email is valid for 24 hours.

Platform Dashboard

1. Follow the link Cloudlets Dashboard and select the Signup option.

2. Provide your Email in the appeared form.

Click the Sign Up! button - and that’s it.

Deploy Application

While accessing the Cloudlets dashboard for the first time, a short tutorial (it can also be manually called via the Help > Tutorial option) will be automatically started. It provides you with a quick platform overview and a step-by-step walkthrough for your first environment creation and application deployment.

Application Marketplace

With the help of the Cloudlets Marketplace you can install different applications, add-ons and clusterized solutions in one click.

1. Click the Marketplace button at the top of the dashboard.

2. Find the required solution within the categorised list or using the search field.

Hover over the application plank and click the Install button.

3. Configure installation preferences and click Install one more time.

All the further steps will be performed automatically by the platform, i.e. :

• an environment with the required topology creation,
• the appropriate application deployment,
• the required dependencies installation,
• connections (e.g. with a database)
• and configurations setting.

In a matter of a few minutes, you’ll get your ready-to-work application.

Manual Deployment

In case you want to deploy any custom application and manually control the deployment process on each particular stage, follow the next steps:

1. Click the New Environment button in the upper-left corner of the dashboard.

2. The Topology Wizard will be opened, where you can set up your environment with the help of:

• multiple programming languages support (Java, PHP, Ruby, Python, Node.js, .NET, Go) and custom Docker containers integration
• wide list of managed software stacks
• automatic vertical scaling to ensure fair pricing and horizontal scaling to provide flexibility and reliability
• public IP attachment for direct access from the Internet

And now let’s check how to create your cloud environment taking a single LiteSpeed application server as an example.

3. In a minute, your environment will be running and appear within the dashboard.

4. Cloudlets platform supports multiple ways of automatic application deployment so that you can select the most suitable option. Today we’ll show the deployment of a default Hello World application from the archive in the deployment manager (located at the bottom of the dashboard).

You can easily add your applications to the Deployment Manager by uploading archive (either from local machine or via URL) or adding the appropriate Git/SVN repository.

Hover over the project and click the Deploy to button.

5. Within the opened Deploy frame, just select your Environment and proceed with the Deploy button.

6. Wait for the successful deployment pop-up and click Open in Browser to ensure everything works fine.

Herewith, if your application requires some additional settings or don’t have a web interface, do not hesitate to use various in-build configuration tools.

That’s all!

To follow the steps from this comprehensive guide and test free the environment creation, deployment, and configuration in the cloud, - register for your cloud hosting trial.