ACA-Capstone-Project-Highly-Available-PHP-Web-Application-on-AWS

This repository documents the solution architecture, implementation steps, and deployment outcomes for the AWS Academy Cloud Architecting (ACA) – Capstone Project. The project demonstrates the design and deployment of a secure, highly available, multi-tier application on AWS using best practices. Below is a clean, professional, British-English GitHub README for your Capstone Project. It is structured for recruiters, technical reviewers, and AWS portfolio presentation.

If you want a version with badges, emojis, or a table of contents, I can tailor it further.

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📌 Project Overview

The scenario involves modernising an existing PHP application and MySQL database initially hosted on a single public EC2 instance. The goal is to migrate this monolithic, insecure setup into a scalable, resilient, and secure AWS environment.

This project showcases cloud architecture skills including:

• Secure Amazon RDS database deployment
• Highly available web hosting using ALB + Auto Scaling Group
• Secrets Manager for secure credential storage
• Private subnets for application and database servers
• Data migration into RDS from a SQL dump
• AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) for service roles

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✅ Solution Architecture

The solution implements a three-tier architecture:

                      ┌──────────────────────────┐
                      │   Internet Users         │
                      └──────────────┬───────────┘
                                     │
                           Public Subnets
                                     │
                      ┌──────────────────────────┐
                      │ Application Load Balancer│
                      └──────────────┬───────────┘
                                     │
                           Private Subnets (Web Tier)
                      ┌──────────────────────────┐
                      │ Auto Scaling Group (ASG) │
                      │  EC2 running PHP app     │
                      └──────────────┬───────────┘
                                     │
                           Private Subnets (DB Tier)
                      ┌──────────────────────────┐
                      │ Amazon RDS MySQL         │
                      │ ‘countries’ database     │
                      └──────────────────────────┘

✅ Key Features

• PHP application deployed across multiple Availability Zones

• Application Load Balancer (ALB) distributing traffic

• Auto Scaling Group (ASG) ensuring elasticity and fault tolerance

• Amazon RDS MySQL configured in private subnets

• Database credentials stored in AWS Secrets Manager

• Strict security group boundaries:

  • ALB → EC2 (HTTP only)
  • EC2 → RDS (MySQL only)
  • No public access to EC2 or RDS

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✅ Architecture Principles Applied

Security

• No public-facing EC2 instances
• Database inaccessible from the internet
• Secrets Manager eliminates hard-coded passwords
• Principle of least privilege enforced via SGs and IAM

Reliability

• Multi-AZ load balancing
• Automatic recovery via ASG
• RDS manages backups and failover (if configured Multi-AZ)

Performance & Scalability

• Web tier scales based on CPU utilisation
• ALB distributes load efficiently across Availability Zones

Cost Optimisation

• Use of t2.micro instances
• Minimal optional features enabled
• Resources stopped/terminated when not in use

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✅ Implementation Steps

1. Create Amazon RDS MySQL Database

• Use DB Subnet Group provided by lab
• Store credentials in AWS Secrets Manager
• Ensure security group allows MySQL access only from EC2

2. Configure Application Load Balancer

• Deploy in public subnets
• Create target group for EC2 instances
• Configure health checks

3. Launch Application Servers via Auto Scaling

• Use Example-LT launch template (preloaded with PHP and SQL dump)
• Deploy ASG across private subnets in at least two AZs
• Attach ASG to ALB target group
• Use target tracking policy

4. Import SQL Data to RDS

• Access SQL dump via EC2 from launch template
• Connect using RDS endpoint
• Import into the countries database

5. Test the Application

• Access via ALB DNS name

• Verify:

  • Homepage loads
  • Query page retrieves MySQL data

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✅ Technologies Used

• Amazon EC2 (Auto Scaling + Launch Templates)
• Amazon RDS for MySQL
• Elastic Load Balancing – Application Load Balancer
• Amazon VPC (public/private subnets)
• AWS Secrets Manager
• Amazon Linux 2023
• IAM Roles & Policies

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✅ Deliverables Included

• ✅ Architecture Diagram
• ✅ Fully deployed and functional PHP application
• ✅ Data imported into RDS
• ✅ Written design summary (in this README)

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✅ Lessons Learned & Reflection

This project demonstrates the transformation of a legacy monolithic application into a secure, highly available cloud-native architecture. It solidifies core cloud architecting skills in:

• Multi-tier design
• Secure networking
• Database migrations
• Automation and scaling
• Applying AWS Well-Architected Framework principles

It also reinforces cost-awareness in a restricted lab environment.

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📜 License

This project is part of the AWS Academy Cloud Architecting curriculum. Do not distribute proprietary lab materials.

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