ASIS

This page describes how to deploy a ASIS infrastructure.

ASIS deployment from scratch

All the permissions from ASIS can be automatically set up, so actually implementing ASIS could be simpler than BSIS. An ASIS can be implemented as:

start_asis
        --workdir <WORKING DIRECTORY>
        --cfg <ASIS CONFIGURATION>

where --workdir is the working directory (where the source ASIS CDK will be copied to), cfg is the ASIS configuration file

The configuration for ASIS is similar to BSIS, while it only contains two sessions shiny and aws.

The shiny session contains the information about where is the shiny application repository (and the credentials to access it if needed). aws includes the base image AMI, region and route53 setup if we need it.

An simple example is shown below:

shiny:
    names:
        hello_world_1: hello_world/link1
        hello_world_2: hello_world/link2
    url: https://gitlab.com/test-12345/mot_shiny_dev.git
    branch: main
    cred:
        user: <user name>
        token: <token>

aws:
    ami: ami-xxxxx
    region: ap-southeast-2
    route53:
        create_new: false
        domain_name: test.come
        zone_id: Zxxx-yyy-zzzz

ASIS deployment from an AMI

When it comes to handling fluctuating traffic volumes for a Shiny application, ASIS offers a distinct advantage over BSIS with its scaling option. However, initializing a new server requires time to “warm up,” including installing all dependencies, which can be a lengthy process.

To avoid the time-consuming server “warm up” process during production deployment, it is recommended to deploy ASIS from an existing AMI.

Step 1: Deploy the application(s) via BSIS (e.g., see here). Note that if you have multiple Shiny applications, it is recommended to bundle them together in the same BSIS deployment.
Step 2: Once you have tested BSIS and confirmed that everything is working correctly, create an AMI of the EC2 instance using the following command: app_utils --job makeami --name <SHINY APPLICATION NAME>, where SHINY APPLICATION NAME refers to the name of the application for which BSIS was set up.

Step 3: Once the AMI is made (it could take 10-15 minutes), the original BSIS can be shutdown, and the ASIS can be brought up using the configuration as below:

shiny: null

aws:
    ami: ami-xxxxx
    region: ap-southeast-2
    route53:
        create_new: false
        domain_name: test.come
        zone_id: Zxxx-yyy-zzzz

Where ami-xxxxx is the AMI-ID just being built.

It is worthwhile to note that it might take quite a while for Route 53 traffic to be updated, before that we should use the Application Load Balancer DNS to access the Shiny application

Note

Note that there is an additional prefix dualstack added in the Hosted zones -> Record of Route53.
For example:
in EC2 Load Balancer, the DNS is Shiny-shiny-18HWQ7XESTMT7-1561701960.ap-southeast-2.elb.amazonaws.com

However in Hosted zones -> Record, the route traffic is dualstack.shiny-shiny-18hwq7xestmt7-1561701960.ap-southeast-2.elb.amazonaws.com.
Therefore, in some cases, we need to go to Hosted zones -> Record of Route53, and manually remove dualstack
When we create a new hosted domain, there can be mismatch of the domain servers between the registered domain and the Hosted zones. The details can be found at here