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GCP: App Engine

In this step-by-step guide, we'll guide you how to deploy your VulcanSQL project to Google Cloud Platform(GCP) using App Engine. It's an application platform for developers to build monolithic server-side rendered websites.

info

For more detailed information of the deployment process, you can read more here.

Step 1: Install and setup the Google Cloud CLI​

Before you begin to use Cloud Run on GCP, you need to do several things:

  1. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.
  2. Make sure the billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.
  3. Install the Google Cloud CLI.
  4. Initialize the gcloud CLI with the following command:
    gcloud init
  5. You can set the default project for your Cloud Run service with the following command:
    gcloud config set project [PROJECT_ID]

For more detailed instructions on how to setup the environment, you can read more here.

Step 2: Package your VulcanSQL API Server​

In this guide, we'll deploy your VulcanSQL API Server without Docker. So please execute the following command in the terminal:

vulcan package --output node

After executing the command, you'll see a message shown like below and a new directory dist in the project directory.

2023-08-08 08:59:27.666  INFO  [CORE] Package successfully, you can go to "dist" folder and run "npm install && node index.js" to start the server 
✔ Package successfully.

The directory structure of dist is as following:

dist
├── config.json
├── index.js
├── package.json
└── result.json
caution

External resources and configurations, such as profiles.yaml, are not copied to the dist folder. You'll need to copy them manually. We strongly recommend using a separate profile instead of the one used for development.

Step 3: Deploy to App Engine from source​

Now we need to do several things before deploying the app to App Engine:

1. Add port:8080 to config.json

Since App Engine accepts network traffic with the port 8080.

2. Change the filename of index.js to server.js and also in package.json

Since App Engine recognizes server.js as the entry file.

3. Create a new file app.yaml and fill in the following content

runtime: nodejs
env: flex
runtime_config:
    operating_system: "ubuntu22"
    runtime_version: "18"

Finally, you can run the following command to deploy your app in the terminal:

gcloud app deploy

After successfully deploying your VulcanSQL app, you'll see the similar message in the terminal:

Deployed service [default] to [https://cannerflow-286003.uw.r.appspot.com]

You can stream logs from the command line by running:
  $ gcloud app logs tail -s default

To view your application in the web browser run:
  $ gcloud app browse

Congratulations! Now your VulcanSQL app is on the cloud and is ready to be shared to the world!

info

If you need to clean up the resources on App Engine, you can read the documentation here.

Step 4: (Optional) Deploy your VulcanSQL API Catalog Server​

If you need to deploy API Catalog Server, you should execute the following command in the terminal:

vulcan package -t catalog-server
caution

The folder generated by the command is also called dist, so if you had executed the command of packaging API server, you should rename the dist folder generated previously to prevent from being overwritten.

Now we need to do several things before deploying the app to App Engine:

1. Add "config": {"port": 8080} to config.json

Since App Engine accepts network traffic with the port 8080.

2. Change the filename of index.js to server.js and also in package.json

Since App Engine recognizes server.js as the entry file.

3. Create a new file app.yaml and fill in the following content

runtime: nodejs
env: flex
runtime_config:
    operating_system: "ubuntu22"
    runtime_version: "18"
env_variables:
    VULCAN_SQL_HOST: [Your VulcanSQL API Server URL]

Finally, you execute the same Google Cloud CLI commands used in the step 3 in the terminal:

gcloud app deploy