Architecture
Introduction
Introduction to the Architecture section, which explains everything related to the cloud infrastructure Webiny relies on.
- what are the default project applications included in a Webiny project
- what is the most complex project application in terms of the deployed cloud infrastructure
Overview
A Webiny project consists of four project applications:
- Core (
./apps/core) - defines core cloud infrastructure resources - API (
./apps/api) - your project’s (GraphQL) HTTP API - Admin (
./apps/admin) - your admin area - Website (
./apps/website) - your public website
If we wanted to compare these applications by the complexity of the cloud infrastructure, we could say that Core and API are the most complex ones. This is simply because these deploy more different cloud infrastructure resources than the remaining Admin and Website project applications.
Visit the Deployments key topics section to learn more about how Webiny approaches cloud infrastructure deployment.
In the following sections, we examine which cloud infrastructure resources get deployed for each project application, how they are working together, different configurations, and other related information.
Before we continue, a couple of words on different Webiny setups and deployment modes.
Different Database Setups
At the moment, Webiny can be exclusively deployed into Amazon Web Services (AWS)
, where users can choose between two different database setups:
- Amazon DynamoDB
- Amazon DynamoDB + Amazon ElasticSearch
Essentially, the setup you choose depends on the size of your project. For small and medium-sized projects or prototypes, we recommend users go with the Amazon DynamoDB setup. For larger and enterprise projects, we recommends the Amazon DynamoDB + Amazon ElasticSearch one.
The diagrams shown in the upcoming sections are representing the Amazon DynamoDB + Amazon ElasticSearch database setup. When it comes to the Amazon DynamoDB setup, everything stays the same, except, of course, the Amazon ElasticSearch service isn’t used.
Development and Production Deployment Modes
Note that the Core and API project application can be deployed in two different deployment modes: development and production.
This is simply because, for development purposes, not all of the production cloud infrastructure resources are needed. For example, for improved security posture, the production mode will deploy all of your AWS Lambda functions into a custom Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) with private subnets. It will also deploy your Amazon Elastic Search Service into multiple availability zones (AZs), in order to provide high availability.
The Admin Area and Website project applications do not posses the ability to be deployed in development and production deployment modes, as it’s simply not needed.
By default, the development mode is used when deploying into any environment, except prod. In that case, the production mode will be used.