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Deploy a 3-Tier Dockerized Application on AWS EC2

Deploy a simple 3-tier application on AWS EC2 using Docker. This project demonstrates deploying a React frontend, Node.js backend, and MySQL database while configuring AWS Security Groups for secure communication between the application layers.

Architecture

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Internet
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v
Frontend EC2
React + Nginx + Docker
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Backend EC2
Node.js + Express + Docker
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Database EC2
MySQL + Docker

Technologies

  • AWS EC2
  • Docker
  • React.js
  • Node.js
  • Express.js
  • MySQL
  • Nginx
  • Ubuntu

Deployment Steps

1. Create EC2 Instances

Create three Ubuntu EC2 instances:
  • Frontend
  • Backend
  • Database
Configure Security Groups to allow only the required ports.

2. Install Docker

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sudo apt update
sudo apt install docker.io -y
sudo systemctl enable --now docker

3. Deploy Backend

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git clone <your-repository>
cd backend

docker build -t backend .
docker run -d --name backend -p 5000:5000 backend

4. Deploy Database

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docker volume create mysql-data

docker run -d \
--name mysql \
-e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=mysecretpassword \
-e MYSQL_DATABASE=myapp \
-v mysql-data:/var/lib/mysql \
mysql:9

5. Deploy Frontend

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docker build -t frontend .

docker run -d \
--name frontend \
-p 80:80 \
frontend
Access the application:
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http://<FRONTEND_PUBLIC_IP>

Security

The database should not be publicly accessible.
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Frontend
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Backend
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Database
Allow database traffic only from the backend Security Group.

Production Improvements

For production, consider using:
  • Amazon RDS
  • Amazon ECR
  • Application Load Balancer
  • Private Subnets
  • AWS Secrets Manager
  • CloudWatch
  • Jenkins or GitHub Actions

Conclusion

This project provides hands-on experience with AWS EC2, Docker, application networking, Security Groups, and 3-tier architecture and can be extended into a complete CI/CD DevOps project.
# docker# docker-compose# docker-network# ai-assisted# amazon-ec2
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