Optimizing Deployment of React frontend and a Bun/Elysia backend App on Google Cloud

[wahyuivan]

I'm deploying a React frontend and a Bun/ElysiaJS on Google Cloud. I'm considering using VM instances, Cloud Run, or Kubernetes Engine for this purpose. Could you provide insights on:

1. Best practices for setting up CI/CD pipelines for this stack on GCP?
2. Optimizing performance and scalability with VM instances vs. Cloud Run vs. Kubernetes Engine?
3. Security measures specific to these services?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

[preciousmynette · Accepted solution]

Hi @wahyuivan,

Welcome to Google Cloud Community!

Deploying an application on Google Cloud Platform offers scalability, reliability, and ease of management but it is critical to choose the right infrastructure to support your workload. Since you are already considering either Compute Engine, Cloud Run or Kubernetes, you might want to check this blog post that breaks down the most important factors to consider when deciding where to run your application. 

If you need more control over the underlying infrastructure (OS, disk images, CPU, RAM and disk), it is best to use Compute Engine. While you also have an option to containerize your application by 1.) Using Kubernetes that gives you complete control over every aspect of container orchestration, from networking, to storage, to how you set up observability. 2.) Using Cloud Run, if your application does not need that level of cluster configuration and monitoring. You can just write your code, package it into a container and deploy. 

See table below for a comprehensive guide on the difference of optimizing performance and scalability, and the security measures implemented between these GCP Services:

	Compute Engine	Cloud Run	Kubernetes
Performance Optimization	Choosing the right VM Instance Type: Machine Family and series recommendations for different workloads	Start containers quickly  Use startup CPU boost to reduce startup latency Use minimum instances to reduce cold starts Check this documentation to see other best practices in optimizing performance in Cloud Run.	Planning the right GKE node size
Scalability Optimization	Load balancing MIGs with autoscaling capabilities	Autoscaling in Cloud Run Services	Horizontal Pod Autoscaling (HPA) Vertical Pod Autoscaling (VPA)
Security measures	Compute Engine Identity and Access Management (IAM) Shielded VMs Confidential VMs	Check this documentation to learn how Cloud Run implements security best practices to protect data.	This documentation provides a full security overview on how workloads in GKE are protected. With the speed of development in Kubernetes, new security features are available for use. This page provides guidance for hardening (GKE) cluster’s security.

You might also want to consider using GKE and Cloud Run together. 

 Also check this documentation for the best practices when setting up CI/CD pipelines on GCP.

I hope the above information is helpful.