Learning Node

Chapter 16. Scaling and Deploying Node Applications

At some point in time, you’re going to want to take your Node application from development and testing to production. Depending on what your application does and what services it provides (or needs), the process can be simple, or it can be very complex.

I’m going to briefly touch on the possible combinations and issues related to production deployment of a Node application. Some require only minimal effort on your part, such as installing Forever to ensure that your Node application runs, well, forever. Others, though, such as deploying your application to a cloud server, can take considerable time and advance planning.

Deploying Your Node Application to Your Server

Taking your application from development to production isn’t overly complicated, but you do need to prepare for the move, and make sure that your application is staged in such a way as to maximize its performance and minimize any potential downtimes.

Deploying a Node application has several prerequisites:

• Your application must be well tested by users as well as developers.

• You need to be able to deploy your application safely, and ensure well-coordinated changes and fixes.

• Your application must be secure.

• You need to ensure that your application restarts if some event causes a failure.

• You may need to integrate your Node applications with other servers, such as Apache.

• You must monitor your application’s performance, and be ready to adjust application parameters if the performance ...