Pathfinder: A Dockerized Node.js Backend with Kubernetes Deployment and Monitoring
Introduction Pathfinder is a mobile application with a Node.js backend that serves as the core server for an event management and campus navigation platform. It is built using the Node.js and Express framework and connects to a cloud-hosted MongoDB Atlas database to handle event, user, and location data. This project documents the complete DevOps lifecycle of the application — from containerization to deployment and monitoring. Part 1 focused on containerization, taking the Node.js application and packaging it into a portable Docker image. Part 2 focused on orchestration, deploying this containerized application onto a local Kubernetes cluster using Minikube, and implementing auto-scaling and monitoring. Part 3 consolidates everything — from code to a fully deployed and monitored application — and serves as a comprehensive documentation of the entire journey. Objectives - Containerization To containerize the 'Pathfin...