BudgetControl Infrastructure Overview

This document provides an overview of the BudgetControl application infrastructure, including the technology stack, architecture, and deployment strategy.

Technology Stack

Backend (BE)

• Primary Language: PHP
• Framework: Laravel
• Specialized Laravel Packages:
  • Laravel API resources
  • Laravel Passport
  • Laravel Jobs/Queue

Frontend (FE)

• Framework: VueJS
• SPA Architecture

Architecture Diagram

graph TD
        User[User] --> CloudFront[AWS CloudFront]
        CloudFront --> Nginx[Nginx Proxy]
        Nginx --> Gateway[API Gateway - PHP/Laravel]
        Gateway --> Cognito[AWS Cognito - Authentication]
        Gateway --> Microservices[Microservices Cluster]
        Microservices --> Postgres[(PostgreSQL Database)]
        Microservices <--> DynamoDB[(AWS DynamoDB - Cache)]
        
        subgraph "Docker Swarm Cluster (3 EC2 Instances)"
                Microservices
        end

        classDef aws fill:#FF9900,stroke:#232F3E,color:white;
        class CloudFront,Cognito,DynamoDB aws;

Infrastructure Components

AWS Services

• CloudFront: Content delivery network and edge caching
• Cognito: User authentication and management
• DynamoDB: Caching layer
• EC2: Hosting Docker containers

Networking & Routing

• Nginx Proxy: Handles SSL termination and request routing
• API Gateway: PHP/Laravel application for routing requests to appropriate microservices

Containerization

• Docker Swarm: Container orchestration across 3 EC2 machines
• Load Balancing: Traffic distributed across container replicas

Microservices Architecture

The application is composed of the following microservices, each running in its own Docker container:

Container Name	Port	Purpose
budgetcontrol-proxy	80/443	Nginx proxy server
budgetcontrol-gateway	8081	API Gateway
budgetcontrol-ms-workspace	8082	Workspace management
budgetcontrol-ms-authentication	8083	Authentication service
budgetcontrol-ms-stats	8084	Statistics and reporting
budgetcontrol-ms-budget	8085	Budget management
budgetcontrol-ms-entries	8086	Financial entries
budgetcontrol-ms-wallets	8087	Wallet management
budgetcontrol-ms-labels	8088	Labels management
budgetcontrol-ms-searchengine	8089	Search functionality
budgetcontrol-ms-debt	8090	Debt tracking
budgetcontrol-ms-savings	8091	Savings management
budgetcontrol-ms-goals	8092	Financial goals
budgetcontrol-ms-jobs	N/A	Background job processing

Data Flow

1. User requests are routed through AWS CloudFront
2. Nginx proxy handles the incoming requests
3. PHP/Laravel Gateway receives the requests and authenticates via AWS Cognito
4. Gateway routes requests to appropriate microservices
5. Microservices process requests, interacting with PostgreSQL database
6. DynamoDB provides caching capabilities to improve performance

Container Configuration

All microservices are built from the mlabfactory/php8-apache:v1.3-xdebug Docker image, which provides a PHP 8 environment with Apache and XDebug for development purposes.