AWS (Amazon Web Services) is a fantastic and reliable cloud service provider. AWS, like GCP (Google Cloud Platform) and Microsoft Azure, provides everything you need to host an application without having to worry about running the underlying servers and network configuration.

However, deploying an application on any of those cloud providers presents many challenges. The typical deployment workflow looks like this: write code, push it to Git repository, compile code, deploy code, validate your changes, and repeat. Developers not only have to take care of all of this by themselves, but they also have to configure tons of services (like VPCs, databases, caches, DNS, CDN, and others) to make their application live on the web.

Qovery solves this problem by combining the reliability of AWS and the simplicity of Heroku to augment the developer experience.

In this blog post, I will show you how Qovery improves developers' workflows by deploying staging and production Laravel application with MySQL database on Qovery. You will be able to focus on writing the best code and delivering business value instead of managing complex services.

Before you begin, this guide assumes the following:

• Your Operating System is macOS / Windows / Linux
• You have a Github account

Qovery

Install Qovery CLI

• Linux
• MacOS
• Windows

# Download and install Qovery CLI on every Linux distribution
$ curl -s https://get.qovery.com | sudo bash

Sign up

# Sign up and sign in command
$ qovery auth

If you are using an environment without access to GUI or a browser, you can use headless authentication instead:

# Sign up and sign in command
$ qovery auth --headless

Your browser window with sign-in options will open.

Note: Qovery needs access to your account to be able to clone your repository for future application builds.

Click here to authorize Qovery to clone and build your applications.

Congratulations, you are logged-in.

Are you hosting your projects on Gitlab? We got you covered! Simply sign in to Qovery using your Gitlab account and enable Qovery in your project using:

# enables Qovery for the project in current working directory
$ qovery git enable

That's it! It's a one time process that needs to be performed in each of your Gitlab projects that makes Gitlab send notifications about events happening in your repository.

In the future, Qovery will allow you to manage your projects directly in Gitlab and Qovery UI.

Deployment

Laravel sample application

Get a local copy of the Laravel sample project by forking it.

Configure your project

To deploy your Laravel application connected to a MySQL, you need to have a .qovery.yml file, and a Dockerfile (both provided in the sample project) at the root of your project.

The .qovery.yml file describes all the dependencies that your application needs (e.g., MySQL) to work smoothly

In this example we are using MySQL v8.0

After forking the sample application, you can check the content of .qovery.yml:

$ cat .qovery.yml

.qovery.yml

application:
  name: my-application
  project: my-project
  cloud_region: aws/us-west-2
  publicly_accessible: true
databases:
- type: mysql
  version: "8.0"
  name: my-db
routers:
- name: main
  routes:
  - application_name: my-application
    paths:
    - /

Authorize the Qovery Github application to get access to your Github account. Once done, all new commits you push to your forked repository will trigger new deployments of the application.

Connect your application to MySQL

Credentials of your database are available via environment variables. Qovery injects environment vars at the runtime. To list all the environment variables available to your application, execute

# List all environment variables
$ qovery project env list

Output

SCOPE    | KEY                                                      | VALUE
BUILT_IN | QOVERY_JSON_B64                                          | <base64>
BUILT_IN | QOVERY_BRANCH_NAME                                       | master
BUILT_IN | QOVERY_IS_PRODUCTION                                     | true
BUILT_IN | QOVERY_MY_APPLICATION_HOSTNAME                           | <hidden>
BUILT_IN | QOVERY_DATABASE_MY_DB_DATABASE                           | <hidden>
BUILT_IN | QOVERY_DATABASE_MY_DB_PASSWORD                           | <hidden>
BUILT_IN | QOVERY_DATABASE_MY_DB_USERNAME                           | <hidden>
BUILT_IN | QOVERY_DATABASE_MY_DB_PORT                               | <hidden>
BUILT_IN | QOVERY_DATABASE_MY_DB_FQDN                               | <hidden>
BUILT_IN | QOVERY_DATABASE_MY_DB_HOST                               | <hidden>
BUILT_IN | QOVERY_DATABASE_MY_DB_CONNECTION_URI_WITHOUT_CREDENTIALS | <hidden>
BUILT_IN | QOVERY_DATABASE_MY_DB_CONNECTION_URI                     | <hidden>
BUILT_IN | QOVERY_DATABASE_MY_DB_VERSION                            | 8.0
BUILT_IN | QOVERY_DATABASE_MY_DB_TYPE                               | MySQL
BUILT_IN | QOVERY_DATABASE_MY_DB_NAME                               | my-db

The sample application is preconfigured to use those environment variables to connect to the database.

Forking the application with .qovery.yml and a Dockerfile should trigger app deployment.

See the deployment status by executing:

# Show your deployment status
$ qovery status

Output

BRANCH NAME | STATUS  | ENDPOINTS                                   | APPLICATIONS    | DATABASES
master      | running | https://main-abcdefgh12345678-gtw.qovery.io | my-application  | my-db

APPLICATION NAME  | STATUS  | DATABASES
my-application    | running | my-db

DATABASE NAME    | STATUS  | TYPE       | VERSION | ENDPOINT | PORT     | USERNAME | PASSWORD | APPLICATIONS
my-db            | running | MYSQL      | 8.0     | <hidden> | <hidden> | <hidden> | <hidden> | my-application

When your application status is running, you can use a browser or curl to access its endpoints.

Trigger a new deployment

Now, you can play with the sample application and commit & push your changes. Qovery detects your actions and triggers new builds and application deployments. Any change you make will be reflected in your deployed application automatically.

Bonuses (optional)

Test the Laravel application locally

The Qovery motto is: if your application runs locally, it runs well on Qovery, too. To test if your application is running locally, execute the following command:

The Docker runtime is required

$ qovery run

Note: qovery run connects your application to the MySQL database on Qovery.

Deploy the application on a staging environment

Qovery has a compelling feature known as "environments". Qovery supports the deployment of isolated development environments that reflect your Git branches. Environments are complete copies of all of your data, application, and services like databases. The Environment is useful for testing changes in isolation before merging them to your main branch.

So, do you want to create a new feature, fix a bug, or make modifications without impacting the production or any other important environment? Type the following commands:

$ git checkout -b feat_foo
$ git push -u origin feat_foo

# show deployment status
$ qovery status

Output

BRANCH NAME | STATUS  | ENDPOINTS                                   | APPLICATIONS    | DATABASES
feat_foo    | running | https://main-yenr7erjbs87dk4m-gtw.qovery.io | my-application  | my-db

APPLICATION NAME      | STATUS  | DATABASES
docker-simple-example | running | my-db

DATABASE NAME  | STATUS  | TYPE       | VERSION | ENDPOINT | PORT     | USERNAME | PASSWORD | APPLICATIONS
my-db          | running | MySQL      | 8.0     | <hidden> | <hidden> | <hidden> | <hidden> | my-application

Multiple Environments

Conclusion

Qovery brings developers the full power of simplicity and flexibility while deploying applications. Any developer can now take advantage of the most popular cloud providers in seconds instead of hours or days.

Accelerate your development and start using Qovery today. Let us know what you think about it on Twitter, or by Discord.

With thanks to Arnaud J. for his contribution to this article.s

Tutorials