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Please see the replacement repositories available for Node.js, Go, Java Liberty, Java Spring, Python Flask, Python Django, and Swift.

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Create and deploy a Node.js Microservice

We have similar applications available for Go, Java Spring, Python Flask, and Java Liberty.

In this sample microservice, you will create a microservice using Express in Node.js, complete with standard best practices, including a health check and application metric monitoring. A microservice is an individual component of an application that follows the microservice architecture - an architectural style that structures an application as a collection of loosely coupled services, which implement business capabilities. The microservice exposes a RESTful API matching a Swagger definition.

You can access the cloud native microservice capabilities at the following endpoints:

• The Swagger UI is running on: /explorer
• The Swagger definition is running on: /swagger/api
• Health endpoint: /health

Steps

You can deploy this application to IBM Cloud or build it locally by cloning this repo first. Once your app is live, you can access the /health endpoint to build out your cloud native application.

Deploying to IBM Cloud

Click Deploy to IBM Cloud to deploy this same application to IBM Cloud. This option creates a deployment pipeline, complete with a hosted GitLab project and a DevOps toolchain. You can deploy your app to Cloud Foundry, a Kubernetes cluster, or a Red Hat OpenShift cluster. OpenShift is available only through a standard cluster, which requires you to have a billable account.

IBM Cloud DevOps services provides toolchains as a set of tool integrations that support development, deployment, and operations tasks inside IBM Cloud.

Building Locally

To get started building this application locally, you can either run the application natively or use the IBM Cloud Developer Tools for containerization and easy deployment to IBM Cloud.

Native Application Development

• Install the latest Node.js 10+ LTS version.

Once the Node toolchain has been installed, you can download the project dependencies with:

npm install

To run your application locally:

npm run start

Your application will be running at http://localhost:3000. You can access the /health endpoint at the host.

IBM Cloud Developer Tools

Install IBM Cloud Developer Tools on your machine by running the following command:

curl -sL https://ibm.biz/idt-installer | bash

Create an application on IBM Cloud by running:

ibmcloud dev create

This will create and download a starter application with the necessary files needed for local development and deployment.

Your application will be compiled with Docker containers. To compile and run your app, run:

ibmcloud dev build
ibmcloud dev run

This will launch your application locally. When you are ready to deploy to IBM Cloud on Cloud Foundry or Kubernetes, run one of the following commands:

ibmcloud dev deploy -t buildpack // to Cloud Foundry
ibmcloud dev deploy -t container // to K8s cluster

You can build and debug your app locally with:

ibmcloud dev build --debug
ibmcloud dev debug

Session Store

You may see this warning when running ibmcloud dev run:

Warning: connect.session() MemoryStore is not
designed for a production environment, as it will leak
memory, and will not scale past a single process.

When deploying to production, it is best practice to configure sessions to be stored in an external persistence service.

Next Steps

• Learn more about augmenting your Node.js applications on IBM Cloud with the Node Programming Guide.
• Explore other sample applications on IBM Cloud.

License

This sample application is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2. Separate third-party code objects invoked within this code pattern are licensed by their respective providers pursuant to their own separate licenses. Contributions are subject to the Developer Certificate of Origin, Version 1.1 and the Apache License, Version 2.

Apache License FAQ