Aiden's GallyVanting: Deploying a Node JS application using IBM Bluemix UI

The big moment. After several weeks I had put together a dashboard for myself to include;

My Local Teams last two games, next game and two games after
Next trains from Waterloo to Winchester
Journey time from Hursley to Winchester
Last five of my home timeline tweets
Share prices

I also added, off the entry page;

Cinema time for two of my nearby cinemas
An old JS application I created that lets you find out how many cities you have visited.

It did what I wanted it to do, but I had to have my laptop running to view it.

My next idea was to be able to show it online whenever I wanted so I could access it as and when I liked. At first I considered using a web hosting service like 1&1 (who I have another web address with) but decided I would instead make use of the IBM Bluemix service.

IBM Bluemix has a node SDK which has a plan of £0.0424 GBP/GB-Hour.

There are a few developerWorks articles that describe deploying a node js application:

- https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/cloud/library/cl-bluemix-fundamentals-create-and-deploy-a-node-app-to-the-cloud/index.html

- Documented instructions: https://console.bluemix.net/docs/runtimes/nodejs/getting-started.html#getting-started-tutorial

- https://joelennon.com/deploying-a-node-js-app-to-ibm-bluemix

An alternative method to the command line as shown in the three examples above, is to use the bluemix User Interface. Which is what I opted for this time, having created several application using the CLI before.

1. Create a "Cloud Foundry Apps" -> SDK for Node.js as seen in the image above.

2. Give your application a name, select the hosting country and select "create"

3. The application will build and then start. You need to wait for it to show as "running" at which point it will be available. In my example, this is true for the url: https://mytest012345.mybluemix.net

4. Within the applications bluemix "Application Details" page we can go to "Overview" and "enable" continuous delivery.

5. This creates a toolchain which include a git repo and an eclipse browser.

6. Select the eclipse tool and we can browse the files in the editor

standard SDK for node JS project

7. Delete the public folder

8. Zip your own public folder as well as your dependencies such as your node modules.

9. Right click on your project folder and select "import -> File or Zip archive" and select the zip file you just created.

10. The zip will be unzipped and the files and directories unpackaged into the project.

11. Replace the "package.json" with your own and replace the README.md.

12. Update the app.js file with your path routes, variables and dependencies

//ADD YOUR VARIABLES
//var abc = require("abc");
/*eslint-env node*/
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// node.js starter application for Bluemix
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// This application uses express as its web server
// for more info, see: http://expressjs.com
var express = require('express');
// cfenv provides access to your Cloud Foundry environment
// for more info, see: https://www.npmjs.com/package/cfenv
var cfenv = require('cfenv');
// create a new express server
var app = express();
// serve the files out of ./public as our main files
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
/*app.get(/route1, function(req, res){

}); REPEAT WITH ALL ROUTES*/
// get the app environment from Cloud Foundry
var appEnv = cfenv.getAppEnv();
// start server on the specified port and binding host
app.listen(appEnv.port, '0.0.0.0', function() {
// print a message when the server starts listening
console.log("server starting on " + appEnv.url);
});

13. We now need to commit the changes we have made. On the left panel, select the "git" option and commit the changes we have just made.

The second button is a link to commit changes to our git repository

14. We can now redeploy the application from the eclipse toolkit using the play button.

The green circle shows the application is running, if red it would indicate an error. Next to this is a play button which deploys the app, the stop button stops the application, the third button opens the application in a new tab, second from right opens the logs and the final button opens the bluemix "application overview" page.

The application should now be running again.

*I would recommend for ease and speed to follow the command line functionality described in the links presented earlier*

So... I now have my application available.