---
title: "AWS StackReference Architecture"
url: "https://www.pulumi.com/dev/examples/aws-ts-stackreference-architecture/"
image: "https://www.pulumi.com/assets/og/dev/examples/aws-ts-stackreference-architecture.png"
---

# AWS StackReference Architecture

- Source on GitHub: https://github.com/pulumi/examples/tree/master/aws-ts-stackreference-architecture

## Get started with this example

This example lives in the [pulumi/examples](https://github.com/pulumi/examples/tree/master/aws-ts-stackreference-architecture) repo. Pull down just this directory to follow along:

```bash
git clone --filter=blob:none --sparse https://github.com/pulumi/examples pulumi-examples
git -C pulumi-examples sparse-checkout set aws-ts-stackreference-architecture
cd pulumi-examples/aws-ts-stackreference-architecture
```

This will deploy a Data VPC and an application VPC that is peered. It will deploy an RDS Instance into the Data VPC and it will
run a sample application in ECS that is fronted with an ALB.

The system has the following layers and need to be deployed in the following order to allow the correct data to be used
between the system:

1. Networking
2. Database
3. Application

## Pre-Requisites

1. [Install Pulumi](https://www.pulumi.com/docs/reference/install).
1. Install [Node.js](https://nodejs.org/en/download).
1. Install a package manager for Node.js, such as [NPM](https://www.npmjs.com/get-npm) or [Yarn](https://yarnpkg.com/lang/en/docs/install).
1. [Configure AWS Credentials](https://www.pulumi.com/docs/reference/clouds/aws/setup/).

## Network

1.  Change to the networking project
    ```bash
    cd networking
    ```

1.  Install the dependencies.

    ```bash
    npm install
    ```

1.  Create a new Pulumi stack named `dev`.

    ```bash
    pulumi stack init dev
    ```

1. Set the Pulumi configuration variables for the project.

    ```bash
    pulumi config set aws:region us-west-2
    ```
   
   If you wish to control the number of availability zones that the VPC will be created within, you can do this by setting:
   
   ```bash
   pulumi config set azCount 3
    ```

1. Deploy the networking stack

    ```bash
    pulumi up
    ```
   

## Database

1.  Change to the database project
    ```bash
    cd database
    ```

1.  Install the dependencies.

    ```bash
    npm install
    ```

1.  Create a new Pulumi stack named `dev`.

    ```bash
    pulumi stack init dev
    ```

1. Set the Pulumi configuration variables for the project:

   ```bash
   pulumi config set aws:region us-west-2
   pulumi config set dbUsername MyRootUser
   pulumi config set dbPassword --secret MyPassword1234!
   ```
   
   You need to set a stack reference to the networking stack so that the RDS Instance can be deployed into the correct VPC
   that was created in the networking stack. The stack needs to be in the form `<organization_or_user>/<projectName>/<stackName>` 
   e.g. `myUsername/multicloud/dev`:
   
   ```bash
   pulumi config set networkingStack stack72/networking-layer/dev
   ```
   
   If you wish to specify an initial database name in the RDS Instance, then you can do so by setting the following:
   
   ```bash
   pulumi config set dbName myDatbaseName
   ```

1. Deploy the database stack

    ```bash
    pulumi up
    ```

## Application

1.  Change to the application project
    ```bash
    cd application
    ```

1.  Install the dependencies.

    ```bash
    npm install
    ```

1.  Create a new Pulumi stack named `dev`.

    ```bash
    pulumi stack init dev
    ```

1. Set the Pulumi configuration variables for the project:

   ```bash
   pulumi config set aws:region us-west-2
   ```
   
   You need to set a stack reference to the networking stack so that the RDS Instance can be deployed into the correct VPC
   that was created in the networking stack. The stack needs to be in the form `<organization_or_user>/<projectName>/<stackName>`:
   
   ```bash
   pulumi config set networkingStack stack72/networking-layer/dev
   ```
 
   You need to set a stack reference to the database stack so that the Application Instance can get the correct credentials
   and database information for application startup. The stack needs to be in the form `<organization_or_user>/<projectName>/<stackName>`:
   
   ```bash
   pulumi config set application-layer:databaseStack stack72/database-layer/dev
   ```
 
1. Deploy the application stack

    ```bash
    pulumi up
    ```
   
You can then take the output `albAddress` and hit it with `curl` or in the browser to see the application running.

## Clean Up

In each of the directories, run the following command to tear down the resources that are part of our
stack.

1. Run `pulumi destroy` to tear down all resources.  You'll be prompted to make
   sure you really want to delete these resources.

   ```bash
   pulumi destroy
   ```

1. To delete the stack, run the following command.

   ```bash
   pulumi stack rm
   ```
   > **Note:** This command deletes all deployment history from the Pulumi
   > Console and cannot be undone.