Pulumi Fundamentals

For this tutorial, we’re going to learn more about cloud computing by exploring how to use Pulumi to build, configure, and deploy a real-life, modern application using Docker. We will create a frontend, a backend, and a database to deploy the Pulumipus Boba Tea Shop. Along the way, we’ll learn more about how Pulumi works.

Time

How long this tutorial will take depends on your internet connection, reading speed, and other factors. On average, this tutorial should take you about 25 minutes to complete.

Prerequisites

You will need the following tools to complete this tutorial:

• A Pulumi account and token
  • If you don’t have an account, go to the signup page.
• The Pulumi CLI
  • If you don’t have the CLI, go to the installation page.
• Docker
• One of the following languages:
  • For the TypeScript/JavaScript version, Node.js 14 or later
  • For the Python version, Python 3.8 or later
  • For the Java version, Java 11 or later and Gradle 7.4 or later
  • For the YAML version, nothing specific!

As to skills, you should be able to

• use your local terminal.
• read and understand basic files from one of these languages:
  • TypeScript/JavaScript
  • Python
  • Java
  • YAML
• read and understand Dockerfiles or understand basic Docker concepts.

Sample app

The sample app we’re building, the Pulumipus Boba Tea Shop, is a progressive web application (PWA) built with MongoDB, ExpressJS, React, and NodeJS (the MERN stack). It’s a fairly common implementation found in eCommerce applications. We have adapted this application from this repository. The app consists of a frontend client, a backend REST server to manage transactions, and a MongoDB instance for storing product data.

About this pathway

This pathway discusses using Pulumi to create infrastructure, configure that infrastructure, and push your infrastructure to production.

For this pathway, we will use Docker to let you learn the basics of Pulumi without a cloud account. We will explore creating a Pulumi Project, building Docker images, and configuring and provisioning containers.

Let’s get started!