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Ensuring Seamless Deployment: Integrating Backend and Frontend with Google Cloud and GitHub Actions (Part 1)

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Vithor Varela
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3 min read

In today's fast-paced development environment, ensuring a seamless and reliable deployment process between the backend and frontend components of an application is crucial. This post explores a robust strategy using Google Cloud services and GitHub Actions to create a sequential deployment flow. This setup guarantees that the frontend deployment only occurs after the backend is fully operational, thus minimizing downtime and integration issues.

Why Sequence Your Deployments?

Sequential deployment is vital in situations where your frontend depends heavily on backend services. If the frontend is deployed before the backend is fully operational, users might encounter errors or downtime, which can affect the user experience and your application's credibility.

Setting Up the Environment

Initial Configuration

  1. Repositories: Ensure you have two separate repositories for your backend (Nest.js) and frontend (Next.js).

  2. Google Cloud Setup:

    • Create a Google Cloud project for each service.

    • Enable Google Cloud Build to access your GitHub repositories for automated builds and deployments.

Google Cloud Services Utilized

  • Google Cloud Build: Automates the build and deployment process.

  • Google Cloud Run: Hosts the containerized applications.

  • Google Cloud Pub/Sub: Manages inter-service communications.

  • Google Cloud Functions: Handles backend notifications and triggers frontend deployments.

Step-by-Step Deployment Process

Deploying the Backend

  1. Build and Deployment:

    • Set a Google Cloud Build trigger for the backend repository to start the build and deployment process upon new commits.

    • Configure the build to create a Docker image and deploy it to Google Cloud Run.

  2. Health Checks:

    • Implement a health check endpoint in your backend to verify its operational status.

  3. Notification of Readiness:

    • After the backend passes health checks, configure Cloud Build to publish a message on a Google Cloud Pub/Sub topic indicating that the backend is ready.

Setting Up the Frontend Deployment

  1. Listening for Backend Readiness:

    • Set up a Google Cloud Pub/Sub subscription to listen to the backend readiness messages.

    • Configure the subscription to trigger a Google Cloud Function upon receiving a message.

  2. Triggering Frontend Deployment:

    • The Google Cloud Function should dispatch a repository event to the frontend's GitHub repository, triggering the GitHub Actions workflow.

  3. Frontend Build and Deployment:

    • The GitHub Actions workflow builds the frontend Docker image and deploys it to Google Cloud Run, ensuring the frontend is only deployed after the backend is ready.

Monitoring and Feedback

  • Google Operations (formerly Stackdriver): Use this for ongoing monitoring and logging of both backend and frontend services.

  • Alert Configuration: Set up alerts to be notified of any performance issues or failures.

Benefits of This Approach

  • Reliability: Reduces the chances of frontend failures due to backend unavailability.

  • Automation: Streamlines the deployment process, reducing manual errors and intervention.

  • Scalability: Easily scales with your project as complexities grow.

Conclusion

By integrating Google Cloud Services and GitHub Actions, developers can create a dependable and automated deployment pipeline. This strategy not only ensures operational consistency between the backend and frontend but also enhances the overall deployment workflow, making it smoother and more manageable. This approach is ideal for teams looking to improve their CI/CD processes and ensure that their deployments are as seamless as possible.

google cloudCI/CDslackGitHub