Auto-Scaling Web Application with S3 Data Storage (AWS Project)

Overview

This project demonstrates an auto-scaling web application on AWS that allows users to upload files to Amazon S3. The infrastructure automatically scales based on traffic, providing high availability and fault tolerance.

Features

• Flask web app that uploads files to S3
• EC2 user-data script for automatic bootstrapping
• Placeholder Terraform configuration for infrastructure-as-code
• Simple Auto Scaling recommendations (CloudWatch + ASG + ALB)

Local development (quick)

1. Create and activate a virtual environment:

   python3 -m venv .venv
   source .venv/bin/activate

2. Install requirements:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Set environment variables and run:

   export S3_BUCKET=your-s3-bucket-name
   export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=...
   export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=...
   export AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-1
   python app.py

4. Open http://localhost (or port 80) to use the app.

Recommended AWS Deployment Steps (short)

• Create S3 bucket
• Create an IAM role with a policy allowing PutObject/GetObject to the bucket, and attach to EC2
• Create a Launch Template or Launch Configuration that pulls this repo on boot (user-data) and runs app
• Create an Auto Scaling Group with the Launch Template and attach to an Application Load Balancer
• Create CloudWatch Alarms to scale out/in based on CPU or RequestCount

Repository structure

auto-scaling-webapp-s3/
├─ app/
│  ├─ app.py
│  └─ templates/index.html
├─ scripts/
│  └─ user-data.sh
├─ terraform/
│  └─ main.tf
├─ requirements.txt
└─ README.md

Next steps

• Add a production-ready systemd unit or Supervisor config
• Provide a full Terraform implementation (security groups, ALB, ASG, IAM)
• Dockerize the app and provide ECS/Fargate or EKS deployment
• Create GitHub Actions workflow to auto-deploy