🚀 MEAN Stack CRUD Application – Production-Ready DevOps Project

📌 Project Overview

This is a end‑to‑end DevOps project showcasing the complete containerization, deployment, and automation of a full-stack MEAN (MongoDB, Express, Angular, Node.js) application.
The app manages a collection of tutorials and supports full CRUD operations plus search — all built and shipped with a production mindset.

What I implemented:

• Docker containerization
• Cloud deployment
• Reverse proxy
• CI/CD automation

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🏗️ Architecture Overview

Developer → GitHub → GitHub Actions (CI/CD)
        → Docker Hub → AWS EC2 → Docker Compose
        → MongoDB → Backend → Frontend → Nginx Reverse Proxy

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🛠️ Tech Stack

🔹 Backend

• Node.js
• Express.js
• MongoDB
• Mongoose

🔹 Frontend

• Angular 15
• HTTPClient

🔹 DevOps & Cloud

• Docker
• Docker Compose
• AWS EC2 (Ubuntu)
• Nginx
• GitHub Actions
• Docker Hub

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✨ Features

✔ Create, Read, Update, Delete tutorials ✔ Search tutorials by title ✔ REST API based architecture ✔ Containerized microservices ✔ Cloud deployment ✔ Reverse proxy on port 80 ✔ Automated CI/CD pipeline ✔ GitOps-style, zero-touch deployments

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📂 Project Structure

crud-dd-task-mean-app
│
├── backend
│   ├── app
│   ├── server.js
│   └── Dockerfile
│
├── frontend
│   ├── src
│   └── Dockerfile
│
├── docker-compose.yml
└── README.md

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⚙️ Setup & Installation

🔹 Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/deep-priyo/mean-crud-devops
cd mean-crud-devops

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🔹 Backend Setup

cd backend
npm install
node server.js

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🔹 Frontend Setup

cd frontend
npm install
ng serve

Application runs on:

http://localhost:4200

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🐳 Docker Containerization

Both frontend and backend are containerized using Docker.

🔹 Build images

docker build -t <docker-username>/mean-backend ./backend
docker build -t <docker-username>/mean-frontend ./frontend

🔹 Push to Docker Hub

docker push <docker-username>/mean-backend
docker push <docker-username>/mean-frontend

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☁️ Cloud Deployment (AWS EC2)

An Ubuntu EC2 instance was configured with:

• Docker
• Docker Compose
• Nginx

The application is deployed using:

docker compose up -d

MongoDB is deployed as an official Docker container.

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🔄 CI/CD Pipeline

GitHub Actions is configured to automate:

• Docker image build
• Image push to Docker Hub
• Automatic deployment on AWS EC2

✔ Pipeline triggers

The CI/CD workflow is scoped to application and infra changes to avoid unnecessary builds on docs-only commits.

It runs on changes to:

• Backend source code

• Frontend source code

• Dockerfiles and container configurations

• Deployment and infrastructure configuration files

Documentation-only updates do not trigger the pipeline. This optimization reduces cloud usage and avoids redundant Docker Hub pushes.

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🌐 Nginx Reverse Proxy

Nginx is configured to:

• Route frontend and backend traffic
• Expose the application on port 80
• Hide internal container ports
• Enable production-style deployment

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🌐 Application Access

Users can access the deployed application using the EC2 public IPv4 address:

http://<EC2-public-ipv4-address>

Example:

http://13.127.148.3

⚠️ Note: The public IPv4 address of the EC2 instance is dynamic and may change when the instance is stopped and restarted.
In production, pin with an Elastic IP or use a custom domain + DNS + HTTPS (SSL).

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💾 Persistent Database & Storage Optimization

To ensure production reliability and prevent data loss, additional improvements were implemented in the infrastructure.

🔹 MongoDB Persistent Storage

Initially, MongoDB data was lost whenever Docker containers were restarted.
To solve this, a named Docker volume was configured:

mongo:
  image: mongo
  container_name: mongo
  restart: always
  ports:
    - "27017:27017"
  volumes:
    - mongo-data:/data/db

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🔐 Security Considerations

✔ Docker containers isolated ✔ MongoDB internal network ✔ SSH secure access ✔ Secrets managed using GitHub Actions ✔ Reverse proxy architecture

📸 Screenshots & Demo

🔹 1. Application UI – Cloud Deployment

This is the main dashboard of the MEAN stack CRUD app deployed on AWS EC2.
Served via Nginx on port 80 — confirming successful cloud deployment.

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🔹 2. Tutorial Details & Update Operations

Full CRUD in action: update, publish, delete.
All actions hit REST APIs (Node.js/Express) with data persisted in MongoDB (Dockerized).

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🔹 3. Add Tutorial – Create Operation

Create flow from Angular → Backend → MongoDB, validating end‑to‑end cloud integration.

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🔹 4. Docker Images in Docker Hub

Docker images for frontend and backend in Docker Hub — built and pushed automatically via GitHub Actions.

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🔹 5. Running Containers on AWS EC2

All services (frontend, backend, MongoDB) running on AWS EC2 via Docker Compose.

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🔹 6. GitHub Actions CI/CD Workflow

Automated CI/CD pipeline execution: image build → push → deploy to cloud infra.

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🔹 7. Successful Deployment Logs

Successful automated deployment: remote container updates and service restarts on EC2.

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🔹 8. Nginx Reverse Proxy Configuration

Served through Nginx reverse proxy on port 80.
Internal container ports hidden for production-style security and ergonomics.

📊 Why This Approach

This project demonstrates a production-ready DevOps workflow:

• Scalable architecture
• Automated deployment
• Containerized services
• Cloud-ready
• High availability

This approach ensures: ✔ Faster deployment ✔ Reduced manual errors ✔ Improved scalability ✔ Easy maintenance

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🚀 What’s Next

• HTTPS with SSL (Let’s Encrypt / ACM)
• Custom domain + DNS
• Kubernetes (EKS/K3s) deployment
• Monitoring with Prometheus & Grafana
• Load balancing (ALB/Nginx)
• Blue‑Green/Canary deployments
• IaC with Terraform or Pulumi

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👨‍💻 About Me

Hi, I’m P M — DevOps | Full‑Stack | Cloud | Automation.
I built this project to showcase real‑world DevOps skills across build, ship, and run.

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📬 Contact

Let’s connect for collaboration or opportunities! ✉️

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