Domain Management for AI-driven Web Applications

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

Managing a domain for an AI-driven web application involves a few key steps when using Pulumi. Typically, you'd need to:

1. Register a domain with a domain name registrar.
2. Configure DNS settings for your domain to point to your web application.
3. Set up your web application with security in mind, for instance, by using a Web Application Firewall (WAF).
4. Monitor the performance and availability of your application.
5. Optionally, set up a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to reduce latency and improve the user experience globally.

Currently, Pulumi doesn't provide a direct way to register domains as it relies on infrastructures provided by cloud providers or third-party services that manage domains. However, once you have your domain, you can use Pulumi to manage the rest of your infrastructure.

For the sake of this example, I'll guide you through setting up an Azure Web Application Firewall policy, assuming you already have a domain registered, and you're hosting your AI-driven web application on Azure. I'll also show you how to set up an Azure monitoring dashboard for your application.

This program will do the following:
- Create a WAF Policy to secure your application.
- Create a Register DNS Zone and A record to point your domain to your app.
- Create a Monitoring Dashboard to keep track of your application's performance.

Let's write the Pulumi Python program:

```python
import pulumi
import pulumi_azure_native as azure_native

# Substitute resource_group_name with your Azure Resource Group name and domain_name with your domain.
resource_group_name = 'my-ai-webapp-rg'
domain_name = 'myaiwebapp.com'

# Create a Web Application Firewall Policy within the specified resource group.
waf_policy = azure_native.network.WebApplicationFirewallPolicy("aiWebAppWafPolicy",
    resource_group_name=resource_group_name,
    location="CentralUS",
    sku=azure_native.network.SkuArgs(
        name="Standard_Microsoft",
    ),
    managed_rules=azure_native.network.ManagedRulesDefinitionArgs(
        managed_rule_sets=[
            azure_native.network.ManagedRuleSetArgs(
                rule_set_type="OWASP",
                rule_set_version="3.1",
                rule_group_overrides=[ # Optional: Customize rule groups
                    azure_native.network.RuleGroupOverrideArgs(
                        rule_group_name="SQLI",
                        rules=[
                            azure_native.network.RuleOverrideArgs(
                                rule_id="942440",
                                enabled_state="Disabled"
                            )
                        ]
                    )
                ]
            )
        ]
    ),
)

# DNS Zone: This is how Azure knows what domain the DNS records below are associated with.
dns_zone = azure_native.network.DnsZone("aiWebAppDnsZone",
    resource_group_name=resource_group_name,
    zone_type="Public",
    location="global",
    name=domain_name,
)

# DNS A Record: This maps your domain to the IP address of your web application.
a_record = azure_native.network.RecordSet("aiWebAppARecord",
    resource_group_name=resource_group_name,
    record_type="A",
    ttl=300,
    zone_name=dns_zone.name,
    records=["20.42.35.240"], # Replace with your web application's public IP.
)

# Monitoring Dashboard: A dashboard in Azure that provides insights into your web application's performance and availability.
dashboard = azure_native.portal.Dashboard("aiWebAppMonitoringDashboard",
    resource_group_name=resource_group_name,
    location="CentralUS",
    # Dashboard properties, like the tiles to display, can be customized here.
)

# Export the DNS zone id and FQDN so it can be used outside of Pulumi if needed.
pulumi.export("dns_zone_id", dns_zone.id)
pulumi.export("full_domain_name", pulumi.Output.concat(domain_name, ".", dns_zone.name))

```

In the above program:

- We created a WAF policy for your application which will protect it from common threats and exploits by inspecting incoming web traffic against a set of rules.
- We defined a DNS zone, which is a container for all of your domain's DNS records. It's required to set up custom domain names for Azure services.
- We added a DNS A record to point your domain name to the IP address of your web application. Make sure to replace `20.42.35.240` with the actual IP address of your web application.
- We created a monitoring dashboard. You can customize the properties to show specific metrics or logs pertaining to your application.

**Note:** Before running this program, ensure that you have the Azure CLI installed and configured with the correct permissions for creating these resources.

To deploy this program using Pulumi:

1. Install Pulumi if you haven't already (see [Pulumi's Installation Guide](https://www.pulumi.com/docs/get-started/install/)).
2. Log in to your Pulumi account by running `pulumi login`.
3. Create a new directory for your project and navigate into it.
4. Run `pulumi new python` to create a new Pulumi project using Python.
5. Replace the contents of `__main__.py` with the code above.
6. Run `pulumi up` to preview and deploy your infrastructure.