DevOps Kubernetes AWS CI/CD

A production-like deployment of a microservices voting application on Amazon EKS with a fully automated CI/CD pipeline using GitHub Actions.

Architecture

User → NGINX Ingress → /vote   → Vote App (Python/Flask) → Redis
                     → /result → Result App (Node.js)    ← PostgreSQL
                                                               ↑
                                                        Worker (.NET)

Tech Stack

Category	Technology
Cloud Provider	AWS (EKS)
Orchestration	Kubernetes
CI/CD	GitHub Actions
Container Registry	Docker Hub
Ingress	NGINX via Helm
Secret Management	Kubernetes Secrets
Infrastructure CLI	eksctl, kubectl, AWS CLI v2, Helm

Microservices

Service	Language	Role
vote	Python (Flask)	Voting frontend
result	Node.js	Results frontend
worker	.NET	Processes votes from Redis to PostgreSQL
redis	Redis	Message queue
postgres	PostgreSQL	Persistent storage

Project Structure

├── vote/                        # Python voting app + Dockerfile
├── result/                      # Node.js result app + Dockerfile
├── worker/                      # .NET worker + Dockerfile
├── K8s/
│   ├── redis-deployment.yaml
│   ├── postgres-deployment.yaml
│   ├── vote-deployment.yaml
│   ├── result-deployment.yaml
│   ├── worker-deployment.yaml
│   └── ingress.yaml
└── .github/workflows/
    └── ci-cd-pipeline.yml

CI/CD Pipeline

Triggers automatically on every push to main:

Push to main
  → Build Docker images (vote, result, worker)
  → Push to Docker Hub
  → Configure AWS credentials
  → Update kubeconfig
  → kubectl apply -f K8s/

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• AWS Account with IAM user (AdministratorAccess)
• Docker Hub account
• AWS CLI v2, eksctl, kubectl, Docker, Helm installed

1. Create EKS Cluster

eksctl create cluster \
  --name voting-app-cluster \
  --region eu-central-1 \
  --nodegroup-name standard-workers \
  --node-type t3.small \
  --nodes 2

2. Connect kubectl to cluster

aws eks update-kubeconfig --region eu-central-1 --name voting-app-cluster

3. Install NGINX Ingress Controller

helm repo add ingress-nginx https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx
helm repo update
helm install ingress-nginx ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx

4. Build and Push Images

docker build -t <dockerhub-username>/vote:latest ./vote && docker push <dockerhub-username>/vote:latest
docker build -t <dockerhub-username>/result:latest ./result && docker push <dockerhub-username>/result:latest
docker build -t <dockerhub-username>/worker:latest ./worker && docker push <dockerhub-username>/worker:latest

5. Create Kubernetes Secret

kubectl create secret generic db-credentials \
  --from-literal=POSTGRES_USER=postgres \
  --from-literal=POSTGRES_PASSWORD=postgres

6. Deploy

kubectl apply -f K8s/
kubectl get pods
kubectl get ingress

Access the app:

• http://<INGRESS-ADDRESS>/vote
• http://<INGRESS-ADDRESS>/result

7. GitHub Actions Setup

Add these secrets to your GitHub repo (Settings → Secrets → Actions):

Secret	Description
DOCKERHUB_USERNAME	Docker Hub username
DOCKERHUB_TOKEN	Docker Hub password
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID	AWS access key
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY	AWS secret key

Security

• Database credentials managed via Kubernetes Secrets
• AWS and Docker Hub credentials stored as GitHub Secrets
• No sensitive data in version control

Cleanup

eksctl delete cluster --name voting-app-cluster --region eu-central-1