Google Cloud as server for node.js - node.js

I want to create a node.js with express application that can host multiple clients with different domain names.
I have never created such application, so my question is:
If I have a project on my computer and want google (or some other hosting) to run my node application, how do I do it? Do I need to zip the whole project, and transfer it to the host? If not, how do Google know the front-end and back-end code?

If you just want to deploy your code, App Engine is the best option for you.
You can deploy your code there, and Google will manage how many instances will you need. For NodeJS, you can see a quickstart that will show you how to start here. You can deploy different services and map those services with different domain names.
There are examples on App Engine if you are using Express, and a tutorial that will show you how to organize your front-end and back-end in App Engine.

Related

Angular SSR - Universal,

Build myself a Angular website and for my own learning curve, wanted to implement Angular Universal. Followed the tutorial: https://angular.io/guide/universal. Want to achieve that all the html is "prerendered" for better crawling/indexing by search engines.
But it looks like it needs a service worker or nodejs hosting to get this working? Isn't it possible with a shared/apache hosting? Or are there better ways to do this?
Thanks in advance!
You cannot serve the application with static files only. You must have a server that will render the HTML in every request.
Some of the options you can do is:
Use a cloud service like AWS Elastic Beanstalk
Launch a linux machine and serve through it (maybe with pm2, nginx)

Can you easily explain the process of deploying ionic (based on react) apps with a node backend?

I recently started using react with a node server as a backend. I'm having problems to understand how to deploy such an app. I'm a beginner with ionic and deploying websites (or rather web based mobile apps) so I apologize if this is an easy/stupid question.
I searched a lot about this but my brain is still struggling to understand the deployment process. As I understand, any website have generally two parts, the frontend built with HTML/CSS/JS and the backend built with nodejs (in my case). If I want to run the app, I need to type npm start in the terminal right? so I'm only running the node server actually, where it will serve the HTML pages (static pages) depending on which url endpoint I wrote, right?
So deploying this is "easy" by copying the static files into a remote server and just run the nodeJs server to serve pages depending on the request, right. Therefore, is the start command here npm start, which will start the whole app.
I'm now using the ionic framework with react syntax and nodejs in the backend. There is a special command to run the ionic app (frontend), which is ionic serve. So if I run this the frontend will show up in the browser. Furthermore, I need to run the node server with npm start to handle requests. Therefore, to start my app, I need the ionic serve and npm start commands. How can this be deployed?
After some research, I read that I need to deploy the ionic app (frontend) and the backend separately. For example the ionic app would be a webapp and the server also a separate webapp (since I'm using MS Azure). The communication between them can be over rest API or web sockets as I understand. Is this the right approach to do this or there is a better/more clear way?
deploying two apps would mean that I need to pay for two apps on azure. Is there a way to minimize costs and have a functional app?
PS: generally, I'm having problems to understand the deployment process. I understand basically how the web works and I can build website on my machine but I'm not confident about my skills when it comes to deployment. Surprisingly, there is not much on the internet about it. Can someone please recommend articles, books or ideally videos that explain this process. Thank you in advance.
here is how you deploy ionic apps as pwa - https://ionicframework.com/docs/react/pwa
if you are using a node backend, the you would start the server same as you would normally, If I am understanding the question
Though your question is not specific to a particular issue but highlights a wide variety of issues, i will still try to explain it.
Ionic is primarily used for creating HYBRID/WEB MOBILE APPLICATIONS. Although you can deploy the code as a website too, but you will not be able to get any benefit out of using ionic for a website only and not using react as a standalone framework.
Be clear on your requirement, your question talks about website and web based mobile apps. Deploying a website and a hybrid mobile application is not one and the same thing. Websites are hosted on servers, mobile apps are deployed in app stores.
If you are not going to deploy to any mobile platform, i suggest you drop ionic and build your website with react.
Now coming to Ionic mobile apps, this is the flow
Create Ionic Project -> Build project for iOS/Android platform -> Deploy these apps to respective app stores
You will not host your Ionic mobile code on any hosting provider.
Your node.js backend code gets hosted on a hosting service. The endpoint URL will change to your hosted servers IP address.
Read about following topics first
What are hybrid mobile applications
What is Ionic
How to build mobile apps using Ionic
Publishing Mobile Applications
Deploying node.js to a cloud host

how to deploy an ionic-react app to mobile if I'm using node js server in the backend?

I discovered ionic this week and I'm really considering using it at work.
Basically, my goal is to build an app that will work on android and Ios, where the needed functionality is to connect to the cloud over web socket and pull data from the cloud and show it on my phone. Maybe later I'll eventually need to consider using login but not for now at least.
Normally, if I'm building a web app. I ll use nodejs to pull the data from the cloud and expose it to the frontend. I ll write all code together and I ll host my app in Heroku or something where the entry point is my nodejs server right? So that my server needs to start and it will take care of the rest.
This is a bit confusing in ionic since I need to start the app with ionic serve, but somehow I also need to start my nodejs server too right? So I assume I can't write the server-side code inside the ionic app or am I wrong?
There is not much about this on the internet but I did some research and I guess that I should deploy (host) my nodejs server in the cloud (maybe using Heroku) and then connect to the server from my mobile app over the socket. Is this the right/only way to do this? are there any security issues with this method?
I find ionic great but I'm not sure if I should use it at work. Sincerely, this use case of using a backend server with ionic made me confused.
Ionic looks ideal for building cross-platform apps that does not need server-side scripting, but how complex can it be if I want to integrate some server-side code in my app? especially as I said I'm going to use some login forms in the future to extend the functionality of my app.
PS: I'm using ionic 6.10.1 and specifically I'm interested in using ionic with react not with angular.
After some search, I discovered that it isn't possible to deploy the frontend and backend code together. Therefore the trick is to deploy the nodejs server separate from the frontend.
Precisely, if it is a web app, then you should deploy the nodejs server in a separate host from the frontend. Then by starting the frontend app, you can communicate with the running nodejs server via socket or REST API.
Hope this helps someone in the future :)

What type of web hosting do I need if I want to run a Node.js app

I want to build a web app with React for frontend and Node.js for backend. The problem comes when choosing the type of hosting I need. I know that for static files(eg. html with css and js) it's enough to have a standard web hosting, but if I want to have a server running Node.js app, do I need a dedicated server or VPS? Why?
I believe you can have either. Are you trying to do this professionally for a client or for a side project?
Personally, I use services like Heroku or Netlify (others here: https://blog.bitsrc.io/8-react-application-deployment-and-hosting-options-for-2019-ab4d668309fd). They run builds of node for your app and are free initially.
You can host your app and publish it for no cost at the beginning. However, on something like Heroku, if you don't pay, it takes 5 seconds for your website to wake up. But, this is great for prototyping. It gives you a URL so others can see it. They are basically version control systems that publish what you currently have. So you can just live push your project at any time and it updates your site.
If your prototype is working and you want it to be a fully dedicated app, then you can either pay or find services that host it. I would recommend prototyping first regardless and wouldn't pay until you need to.

Connecting React and React Native with Express

So I just started learning ReactJS and React Native.
I have some knowledge of MEN (Mongo, Express, Node). Up to this point, I learned how to res.render() files and pass objects in there.
Now what I need to do, is make MERN app. This app also needs to have Android and iOS version of it.
So far I learned that R stands for ReactJS, not react-native. Is there a way so it includes both? And where do I put react files when I have folder structure like from express-generator? Or is there a way they can be in completely different directories, and one calls the other via import?
It comes down to architecture I believe. The way I like to create the stack goes as follows.
You can create an API using Mongo/Express/Node that serves endpoints for your client app (created using reactjs, react-native and whatever other tech you want to include) to call using HTML requests. This would work for both mobile apps (using react-native) and desktop apps (using reactjs).
There's a couple different ways to deploy this. You can create 2 separate apps, a server app and a client app, which are both hosted individually by 2 separate hosts. This is useful because you decouple your front end code from your back end code. Also, you can have 2 separate directories for your code.
Another method of deployment would be to have your server serve your client files. This ones a little bit tricker, but you will be able to deploy your entire app inside 1 host so this option is also cheaper. I would suggest reading this article to figure out how to implement this and the file structure https://originmaster.com/running-create-react-app-and-express-crae-on-heroku-c39a39fe7851

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