Album Store

A demo fullstack solution that supports reading/writing album information locally using React for simple frontend, Node/Express for backend, Docker, LocalStack and Kubernetes(Minikube) for orchestration. It is intended as learning materials for students taking Scalable Distributed System during the Spring of 2025 at Northeastern University in Vancouver.

Local Setup

Frontend

in ./client

npm start

Backend

in ./server

node index.js

S3

docker run --rm -it -p 4566:4566 -p 4572:4572 localstack/localstack

awslocal s3api create-bucket --bucket test-bucket --region us-west-2 --create-bucket-configuration LocationConstraint=us-west-2

Example API usage

Health Check

http://localhost:3001/test-db

Albums

GET

curl -X GET http://localhost:3001/albums

POST (thumnail optional)

curl -X POST http://localhost:3001/albums \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"title": "My Album", "thumbnail_url": "http://example.com/thumb.png"}'

PUT

curl -X PUT http://localhost:3001/albums/1 \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"title": "Updated Title", "thumbnail_url": "http://example.com/updated.png"}'

DELETE

curl -X DELETE http://localhost:3001/albums/1

Tracks

PUT

curl -X POST http://localhost:3001/tracks/1 \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"youtube_link": "https://youtu.be/example"}'

Delete

curl -X DELETE http://localhost:3001/tracks/1/1

Minikube Related Commands

minikube start

running the first time

eval $(minikube docker-env)

docker build -t album-app:local .

kubectl apply -f albums-schema-cm.yaml
kubectl apply -f postgres.yaml
kubectl apply -f localstack.yaml
kubectl apply -f init-s3-bucket.yaml
kubectl apply -f album-env.yaml
kubectl apply -f deployment.yaml
kubectl apply -f service.yaml

tunnel to loadbalancer

minikube tunnel --bind-address 0.0.0.0

restart album app

kubectl rollout restart deployment album-app-deployment

check pod status

kubectl get pods

check service status

kubectl get svc

access app

minikube ip
curl http://$(minikube ip):30080/

auto-scale

kubectl autoscale deployment album-app-deployment \
  --cpu-percent=50 \
  --min=1 \
  --max=5

edit specs

kubectl edit hpa album-app-deployment

monitor HPA

kubectl get hpa -w

kill and restart postgres

kubectl delete pod -l app=postgres

port-forwarding from minikube to 3001 in localhost:

kubectl port-forward svc/album-app-service 3001:80

reapply s3 init job

kubectl delete job init-s3-bucket
kubectl apply -f init-s3-bucket.yaml

Example Preliminary Performance Test Results with JMeter

(using auto-scaling rule specified in the command above) get album id = 1 post same album post same image

max 1 replicas

CPU 442%/50% POST /upload 121.1 tps POST /album 145.3 tps GET /albums 151.8 tps total 386.5 tps

max 5 replicas

CPU 167%/50% POST /upload 158.5 tps POST /album 188.7 tps GET /albums 195.6 tps total 475.5 tps