B4J Question How suitable is Google Cloud for hosting apps created using ABMaterial?

[Indic Software]

Hello,

The question says it all.

I am thinking of building a web application using of ABMaterial and would like to know if it would be possible to host this on Google Cloud.

Actually I also want to know if it is advisable to take this approach or use NodeJS for building web apps and host them on Google Cloud.

Regards,

Yogesh

 

[alwaysbusy]

I don’t know what you are allowed to do with google cloud, but if you can start a jar like java -jar yourapp.jar, it should work. Test it first with one of Erels webapps without ABM. If that works, ABM will as it is only an alternative UI for normal B4J webapps.

 

[MichalK73]

I did not test but from the description I read that it will work.

https://cloud.google.com/java/

 

[alwaysbusy]

I read indeed you may be able to use putty to connect to the server

https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/connecting-to-instance

So, one should be able to start the jar, as java 1.8 is running on it (theoretically)

 

[Ed Brown]

GCE is more than up for the task - I use it A LOT.
Keep in mind that if you want to send email from a Google VM then you will need to make use of a 3rd party mail service. I use SendGrid which you can use for free if you sign up through Google Console.
You will also need to make sure that Java is installed - by that I mean that you will need to install Java onto the distro of Linux that you choose for the VM.

 

[alwaysbusy]

@Ed Brown Would you mind making a small tutorial on how to use a B4J webapp on GCE? This would be very helpful for everyone here on the forum (me included).

 

[Ed Brown]

@alwaysbusy sure, because you asked nicely

It'll take me a little while to organise but I should have something ready to share over the weekend...if that suits people on the forum.

 

[alwaysbusy]

@Ed Brown Thanks a bunch, really appreaciated!

There are so many possible setups out there to run B4J WebApps and having a basic tutorial how to get started can makes it so much easier to choose one. As for GCE, I didn't even know this was possible. I thought it was for the Google App Engine only.

 

[Ed Brown]

I thought it was for the Google App Engine only.

You're not alone there - I thought the same when I first looked at GCE. There's a lot more to GCE and some of it is really neat! I'm looking at covering the following points

• Creating a GCE account
• Creating a VM
• Installing MySQL (the easy way and the less easy way)
• Creating a SendGrid account - used only for sending email from a GCE VM
• Installing a B4J console app
• Making the B4J console automatically start after a server reboot
• Basic firewall rules

If you can think something else that would be beneficial then let me know.

 

[alwaysbusy]

Sounds great! Looking forward to it.

 

[Indic Software]

@Ed Brown As for GCE, I didn't even know this was possible. I thought it was for the Google App Engine only.

That were my exact thoughts. But just recently I had a chat with a developer who said he is using GCE for this web app built in PHP. So thought if PHP is possible then there may be possibilities to run JAVA server also.

So I asked.

 

[Indic Software]

Ed Brown,

First of all thanks for being ready to take out some time to write a tutorial for us newbies.

While you are at it also cover installation of PHP and Apache if possible, as I personally have a need to build a web app that will be using PHP based web framework for certain jobs in background.

And finally if you have experience with AWS/EC2 then also share the same here as and give comparative study of what is best for what kind of apps.

Thanks you.

Regards,

Yogesh

 

[Ed Brown]

Hi @Indic Software

also cover installation of PHP and Apache if possible

I'll add it to the list. I'm not familiar with PHP development so I can only cover the installation part of it.

Also, I haven't forgotten. It's a bit bigger than I first thought - ie. a lot more documentation than I originally estimated. I'm already up to 18 pages of a Word document so I may need to make several posts. This will depend on how large/big a forum post can be (including images).

 

[alwaysbusy]

...and that is how the small tutorial became a book children!

Maybe you could 'reserve' a post for each chapter in the forum topic?

 

[Ed Brown]

Maybe you could 'reserve' a post for each chapter in the forum topic?

That might be a good idea.

I can potentially see this turning into a series of posts that slowly evolve into more complex scenarios using GCE - like load balancing and health checks etc.

 

[alwaysbusy]

like load balancing and health checks

Yes! Yes! Yes! Me like...

 

[Ed Brown]

It's taken longer than I thought to knock out some tutorials about using GCE. I now have a couple of tutorials to get people started. The first tutorial starts here [GCE] For Noobs, Part 1 - Intro

More tutorials will follow as I put them together. The aim initially is to provide enough information to allow anyone to get a working VM up and running and doing something.