☁️ Estate Rental - Cloud-Native Infrastructure

📋 Executive Summary

This repository contains the Infrastructure as Code (IaC) for the Estate Rental platform, a modern, AI-powered real estate solution. Built on AWS using Terraform, this infrastructure is designed for high availability, scalability, and security. It leverages Amazon EKS for orchestrating microservices and AI models, ensuring a robust foundation for the application's "Cloud-Native" architecture in the Stockholm (eu-north-1) region.

🚀 Core Architecture Features

• High Availability: Multi-AZ deployment across eu-north-1a and eu-north-1b.
• Security First: Strict network isolation with Private Subnets for compute and data layers.
• Scalable Compute: Auto-scaling EKS Node Groups using m7i-flex.large instances.
• AI Integration: Dedicated infrastructure for hosting FastAPI-based AI models (Heatmap, Recommendation, Scoring).
• Automated Lifecycle: ECR repositories with automated image scanning and lifecycle policies.
• Cost Optimized: Strategic use of NAT Gateways and Spot/On-Demand instance mix capabilities.

🛠️ Tech Stack

Component	Technology	Description
Cloud Provider	AWS	Region: eu-north-1 (Stockholm)
IaC	Terraform	Infrastructure provisioning and state management
Orchestrator	Amazon EKS	Kubernetes v1.29
Compute	EC2 (m7i-flex)	Optimized for general purpose & memory intensive workloads
Database	Amazon RDS	MySQL 8.0 (Private Subnet)
Container Registry	Amazon ECR	Secure storage for Docker images with vulnerability scanning
IAM	AWS IAM	RBAC & IRSA (IAM Roles for Service Accounts)

🏗️ Detailed Infrastructure Components

🌐 Network (VPC)

The network is built on a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) with a CIDR of 10.0.0.0/16, divided into:

• Public Subnets: Hosted in eu-north-1a & eu-north-1b for Load Balancers and NAT Gateways.
• Private Subnets: Hosted in eu-north-1a & eu-north-1b for EKS Nodes and RDS.
• Traffic Flow: Outbound traffic for private resources is routed through a NAT Gateway in Zone A.

💻 Compute (EKS)

• Cluster: estate-rental-cluster (v1.29).
• Node Group: estate-rental-nodes.
  • Instance Type: m7i-flex.large (2 vCPU, 8GB RAM) - chosen for optimal Java/Spring Boot performance.
  • Scaling Strategy: Auto-scaling configured (Min: 2, Max: 4, Desired: 3).
  • Placement: Strictly deployed in Private Subnets for security.

💾 Data & Messaging

• Database: Amazon RDS MySQL 8.0 (db.t3.micro).
  • Secured within a dedicated DB Subnet Group.
  • Access restricted to EKS nodes via Security Groups.

🔒 Security

• IAM Roles: Granular permissions for EKS Cluster, Worker Nodes, and Load Balancer Controller.
• OIDC Provider: Integrated for secure authentication of service accounts (IRSA).
• ECR Security: Automated "Scan on Push" enabled for all microservices repositories.

🤖 AI Microservices Integration

The infrastructure provisions specific ECR repositories and compute capacity to host the platform's three core AI models:

1. AI Heatmap: Visualizes property demand and value.
2. AI Recommendation: Personalized property suggestions.
3. AI Scoring: Tenant scoring and risk assessment. These services run as pods within the EKS cluster, leveraging the high-memory nodes (m7i-flex) for efficient inference.

📦 Deployment Guide

Prerequisites

• AWS CLI configured with appropriate permissions.
• Terraform installed (v1.5+).

Steps

1. Initialize Terraform

   terraform init

2. Review the Plan

   terraform plan

3. Apply Infrastructure

   terraform apply -auto-approve

4. Configure kubectl

   aws eks update-kubeconfig --region eu-north-1 --name estate-rental-cluster

5. Install AWS Load Balancer Controller

   The AWS Load Balancer Controller is essential for provisioning Application Load Balancers (ALB) that expose your Kubernetes Ingress resources to the internet.

   # 1. Add the EKS charts repository
   helm repo add eks https://aws.github.io/eks-charts
   helm repo update
   
   # 2. Retrieve your VPC ID (from Terraform output)
   export VPC_ID=$(terraform output -raw vpc_id)
   
   # 3. Install the controller via Helm
   helm install aws-load-balancer-controller eks/aws-load-balancer-controller \
     -n kube-system \
     --set clusterName=estate-rental-cluster \
     --set serviceAccount.create=false \
     --set serviceAccount.name=aws-load-balancer-controller \
     --set region=eu-north-1 \
     --set vpcId=$VPC_ID

📤 Outputs

After a successful deployment, Terraform will output the following critical information:

• rds_endpoint: The connection endpoint for the MySQL database.
• eks_cluster_name: Name of the created Kubernetes cluster.
• ecr_repository_urls: List of URLs for pushing Docker images.

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Architected with ❤️ by the Estate Rental DevOps Team.