🛠️ Terraform ALB Project

💥 Spinning Up EC2 Behind an ALB — All with Terraform

🔍 The Problem

Sometimes you just need to test a high-availability setup — EC2 instances behind a load balancer — and don’t want to click through 7 AWS console screens to do it.

I wanted a Terraform module that could:

• ✅ Launch EC2s (with custom scripts)
• ✅ Place them behind an Application Load Balancer
• ✅ Output the public ALB URL instantly

🛠️ The Fix: Simple Terraform + Scalable ALB Setup

I built a Terraform project that:

• 💡 Lets you control the number of EC2 instances with a single variable
• 📄 Lets you pass in your own user_data script
• 🔐 Sets up security groups and health checks automatically
• 🌐 Outputs the ALB DNS for immediate access

The whole thing deploys in minutes and works great for both demos and production prototypes.

📬 GitHub Link

Code is available here: 👉 github.com/chinmaya-chhatre/terraform-alb-project

📈 What Changed

• ⚙️ Cut deploy time for load-balanced EC2s to under 2 minutes
• 🧪 Used this as a testbed for fault tolerance and config drift experiments
• 💼 Became a personal template for future multi-instance app setups

⚖️ Tradeoffs I Made

• No Auto Scaling (Yet): This setup creates a fixed number of instances — but could evolve into ASG-backed ALB
• Single AZ Default: Starts in one availability zone to keep it simple for testing
• No Remote Backend: Uses local state to stay portable — great for testing, not for teams

🧠 What I'd Add Next

• 🔁 Add optional Auto Scaling Group integration
• 🌍 Enable multi-AZ deployments with one flag
• 📦 Turn this into a reusable Terraform module with versioning

🧵 Why I’m Sharing This

Because good infra doesn’t need to be complicated. Because Terraform should be fun, not frustrating. And because spinning up load-balanced EC2s should be a one-liner, not a one-day task.

📎 Bonus Links

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