Chapter 4: Cloud Deployment

Introduction

Your application is ready, Docker configured, CI/CD in place. It's time to go live! This chapter covers the main cloud deployment options.

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🎯 Chapter Objectives

By the end of this chapter, you will know how to:

1. ✅ Deploy on Railway
2. ✅ Deploy on Heroku
3. ✅ Understand AWS options
4. ✅ Configure a managed database
5. ✅ Choose the right platform

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1. Platform Comparison

Platform	Difficulty	Cost	Ideal for
Railway	⭐ Easy	Free → $5/month	Personal projects, startups
Heroku	⭐ Easy	$7/month	Simple apps
Render	⭐ Easy	Free → $7/month	Heroku alternative
AWS ECS	⭐⭐⭐ Complex	Variable	Enterprise
Kubernetes	⭐⭐⭐⭐ Advanced	Variable	Microservices

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2. Railway (Recommended for Beginners)

Why Railway?

• ✅ Simple interface
• ✅ Deployment from GitHub
• ✅ Integrated PostgreSQL
• ✅ Free to start
• ✅ Supports Docker

Deployment

Option 1: From GitHub

1. Go to railway.app
2. "New Project" → "Deploy from GitHub repo"
3. Select your repository
4. Railway automatically detects Spring Boot

Option 2: With Docker

# Install Railway CLI
npm i -g @railway/cli

# Login
railway login

# Create a project
railway init

# Deploy
railway up

Configuration

# Environment variables (in Railway Dashboard)
SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE=prod
DATABASE_URL=${{Postgres.DATABASE_URL}}

Add PostgreSQL

1. In the Railway project: "New" → "Database" → "PostgreSQL"
2. Variables are automatically injected

railway.json

{
  "$schema": "https://railway.app/railway.schema.json",
  "build": {
    "builder": "DOCKERFILE",
    "dockerfilePath": "Dockerfile"
  },
  "deploy": {
    "startCommand": "java -jar app.jar",
    "healthcheckPath": "/actuator/health",
    "restartPolicyType": "ON_FAILURE"
  }
}

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3. Heroku

Preparation

Procfile (at the root):

web: java -Dserver.port=$PORT -jar target/*.jar

system.properties:

java.runtime.version=17

Deployment

# Install Heroku CLI
# https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/heroku-cli

# Login
heroku login

# Create the app
heroku create my-spring-app

# Add PostgreSQL
heroku addons:create heroku-postgresql:mini

# Deploy
git push heroku main

# View logs
heroku logs --tail

Environment Variables

heroku config:set SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE=prod
heroku config:set JWT_SECRET=your-secret-key

# View all variables
heroku config

With Docker

# Login to Heroku registry
heroku container:login

# Build and push
heroku container:push web

# Deploy
heroku container:release web

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4. Render

Deployment

1. Go to render.com
2. "New" → "Web Service"
3. Connect GitHub
4. Configure:
   • Build Command: mvn clean package -DskipTests
   • Start Command: java -jar target/*.jar

render.yaml

services:
  - type: web
    name: my-spring-app
    env: docker
    dockerfilePath: ./Dockerfile
    envVars:
      - key: SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE
        value: prod
      - key: DATABASE_URL
        fromDatabase:
          name: mydb
          property: connectionString

databases:
  - name: mydb
    plan: free

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5. AWS (Options)

Elastic Beanstalk (Simple)

# Install EB CLI
pip install awsebcli

# Initialize
eb init

# Create the environment
eb create production

# Deploy
eb deploy

ECS with Fargate (Docker)

# Create a cluster
aws ecs create-cluster --cluster-name my-cluster

# Create a task definition (JSON)
aws ecs register-task-definition --cli-input-json file://task-definition.json

# Create a service
aws ecs create-service \
  --cluster my-cluster \
  --service-name my-service \
  --task-definition my-task \
  --desired-count 2

task-definition.json

{
  "family": "my-spring-app",
  "containerDefinitions": [
    {
      "name": "app",
      "image": "myuser/myapp:latest",
      "portMappings": [
        {
          "containerPort": 8080,
          "hostPort": 8080
        }
      ],
      "environment": [
        {
          "name": "SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE",
          "value": "prod"
        }
      ],
      "logConfiguration": {
        "logDriver": "awslogs",
        "options": {
          "awslogs-group": "/ecs/my-app",
          "awslogs-region": "us-east-1"
        }
      }
    }
  ],
  "requiresCompatibilities": ["FARGATE"],
  "cpu": "256",
  "memory": "512"
}

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6. Managed Database

Railway PostgreSQL

# Automatically configured
spring.datasource.url=${DATABASE_URL}

Heroku Postgres

# Heroku provides DATABASE_URL automatically
spring.datasource.url=${DATABASE_URL}

AWS RDS

spring.datasource.url=jdbc:postgresql://mydb.xxx.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com:5432/mydb
spring.datasource.username=${DB_USERNAME}
spring.datasource.password=${DB_PASSWORD}

Parse DATABASE_URL

Some platforms provide a URL in the format:

postgres://user:password@host:5432/dbname

Spring configuration to parse:

@Configuration
public class DatabaseConfig {

    @Bean
    @Profile("prod")
    public DataSource dataSource() {
        String databaseUrl = System.getenv("DATABASE_URL");
        
        if (databaseUrl != null && databaseUrl.startsWith("postgres://")) {
            // Parse Heroku/Railway format
            URI uri = URI.create(databaseUrl);
            String username = uri.getUserInfo().split(":")[0];
            String password = uri.getUserInfo().split(":")[1];
            String jdbcUrl = "jdbc:postgresql://" + uri.getHost() + ":" + uri.getPort() + uri.getPath();
            
            HikariDataSource ds = new HikariDataSource();
            ds.setJdbcUrl(jdbcUrl);
            ds.setUsername(username);
            ds.setPassword(password);
            return ds;
        }
        
        // Fallback
        return DataSourceBuilder.create().build();
    }
}

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7. Deployment Checklist

Before Deployment

□ Tests pass locally
□ Production profile configured
□ Secrets externalized
□ Dockerfile tested
□ Health check configured
□ Logs configured

Environment Variables

# Essential
SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE=prod
DATABASE_URL=...
JWT_SECRET=...

# Optional
SERVER_PORT=8080
JAVA_OPTS="-Xmx512m"

Post-Deployment

□ Application accessible
□ Health check OK
□ Logs visible
□ Database connected
□ Monitoring in place

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8. Monitoring in Production

Actuator

management.endpoints.web.exposure.include=health,info,prometheus
management.endpoint.health.show-details=when_authorized

Cloud Logging

# JSON logs for cloud
logging.pattern.console={"timestamp":"%d","level":"%p","logger":"%c","message":"%m"}%n

Monitoring Services

• Railway: Integrated metrics
• Heroku: Heroku Metrics
• AWS: CloudWatch
• External: Datadog, New Relic

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9. Summary

Recommendations by Use Case

Personal project / POC:
→ Railway (free, simple)

Startup / MVP:
→ Railway or Render ($5-20/month)

SME / Production:
→ Heroku or AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Enterprise / Scale:
→ AWS ECS / Kubernetes

Quick Deployment (Railway)

# 1. Have a Dockerfile
# 2. Push to GitHub
# 3. On railway.app:
#    - New Project → GitHub
#    - Add PostgreSQL
#    - Configure variables
# 4. Done! 🚀

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🎯 Next Step

Time for practice! Let's Dockerize and deploy an application.

➡️ TP12.1: Complete Dockerization

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⬅️ Back to Module 12