AWS Elastic Beanstalk – The DevOps Engineer’s Secret Weapon

What is Elastic Beanstalk? Elastic Beanstalk (EB) is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) by AWS that helps developers deploy and manage applications in the cloud—without managing the underlying infrastructure. You just upload your code, and Beanstalk: Handles provisioning (EC2, ELB, Auto Scaling, etc.) Monitors the health of your app Manages deployments Supports multiple languages: Python, Node.js, Java, PHP, Ruby, .NET, Go, and Docker Why Use Elastic Beanstalk? Feature Description Fully Managed No need to manage servers or scaling manually Fast Deployment Upload code + config and it’s live Customizable Full control of underlying EC2, VPC, Security Built-in Monitoring Comes with CloudWatch integration Supports CI/CD Works with CodePipeline & GitHub Actions Supported Architectures Single-instance: Good for dev/test environments Load-balanced + Auto-scaled: Great for production Worker Environment: For background jobs (e.g., SQS consumers) Step-by-Step: Deploy a Python Web App to Elastic Beanstalk Let’s deploy a simple Flask app: Step 1: Set Up the Project Locally mkdir flask-eb-demo && cd flask-eb-demo python3 -m venv venv source venv/bin/activate pip install flask Create application.py: from flask import Flask app = Flask(name) @app.route('/') def home(): return "Hello from Elastic Beanstalk!" if name == "main": app.run() Create requirements.txt: Flask==2.2.2 Create Procfile: web: gunicorn application:app Step 2: Install EB CLI pip install awsebcli Configure it: aws configure Step 3: Initialize and Deploy eb init -p python-3.8 flask-eb-demo Choose region Create or use an existing Elastic Beanstalk app Link to your Git repo if available Then create an environment: eb create flask-env To deploy: eb deploy To open the app in your browser: eb open Securing Your Environment Use HTTPS with SSL certs via ACM Set env variables using: eb setenv KEY=value ANOTHER=value Restrict EC2 access via security groups Monitoring & Logs Elastic Beanstalk provides: Health Monitoring Dashboard CloudWatch Logs Auto Recovery options Alarms for CPU, memory, latency, etc. To pull logs: eb logs Advanced: CI/CD with GitHub Actions Example .github/workflows/deploy.yml: name: Deploy to Elastic Beanstalk on: push: branches: [main] jobs: deploy: runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Checkout uses: actions/checkout@v2 - name: Deploy to EB uses: einaregilsson/beanstalk-deploy@v20 with: aws_access_key: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }} aws_secret_key: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }} application_name: "flask-eb-demo" environment_name: "flask-env" version_label: ${{ github.sha }} region: "us-east-1" When Not to Use Elastic Beanstalk If you need fine-grained container orchestration → use ECS or EKS If you want ultra-low latency and edge computing → use Lambda + API Gateway

Apr 7, 2025 - 03:03

AWS Elastic Beanstalk – The DevOps Engineer’s Secret Weapon

What is Elastic Beanstalk?

Elastic Beanstalk (EB) is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) by AWS that helps developers deploy and manage applications in the cloud—without managing the underlying infrastructure.

You just upload your code, and Beanstalk:

Handles provisioning (EC2, ELB, Auto Scaling, etc.)
Monitors the health of your app
Manages deployments
Supports multiple languages: Python, Node.js, Java, PHP, Ruby, .NET, Go, and Docker

Why Use Elastic Beanstalk?

Feature	Description
Fully Managed	No need to manage servers or scaling manually
Fast Deployment	Upload code + config and it’s live
Customizable	Full control of underlying EC2, VPC, Security
Built-in Monitoring	Comes with CloudWatch integration
Supports CI/CD	Works with CodePipeline & GitHub Actions

Supported Architectures

Single-instance: Good for dev/test environments
Load-balanced + Auto-scaled: Great for production
Worker Environment: For background jobs (e.g., SQS consumers)

Step-by-Step: Deploy a Python Web App to Elastic Beanstalk

Let’s deploy a simple Flask app:

Step 1: Set Up the Project Locally

mkdir flask-eb-demo && cd flask-eb-demo
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install flask

Create application.py:

from flask import Flask
app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/')
def home():
    return "Hello from Elastic Beanstalk!"

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run()

Create requirements.txt:

Flask==2.2.2

Create Procfile:

web: gunicorn application:app

Step 2: Install EB CLI

pip install awsebcli

Configure it:

aws configure

Step 3: Initialize and Deploy

eb init -p python-3.8 flask-eb-demo

Choose region
Create or use an existing Elastic Beanstalk app
Link to your Git repo if available

Then create an environment:

eb create flask-env

To deploy:

eb deploy

To open the app in your browser:

eb open

Securing Your Environment

Use HTTPS with SSL certs via ACM
Set env variables using:

  eb setenv KEY=value ANOTHER=value

Restrict EC2 access via security groups

Monitoring & Logs

Elastic Beanstalk provides:

Health Monitoring Dashboard
CloudWatch Logs
Auto Recovery options
Alarms for CPU, memory, latency, etc.

To pull logs:

eb logs

Advanced: CI/CD with GitHub Actions

Example .github/workflows/deploy.yml:

name: Deploy to Elastic Beanstalk

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - name: Checkout
      uses: actions/checkout@v2

    - name: Deploy to EB
      uses: einaregilsson/beanstalk-deploy@v20
      with:
        aws_access_key: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
        aws_secret_key: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
        application_name: "flask-eb-demo"
        environment_name: "flask-env"
        version_label: ${{ github.sha }}
        region: "us-east-1"

When Not to Use Elastic Beanstalk

If you need fine-grained container orchestration → use ECS or EKS
If you want ultra-low latency and edge computing → use Lambda + API Gateway