Acquia Cloud Pro flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Acquia Cloud environments

Each environment (dev, stage, prod) has isolated infrastructure, including separate load balancers, web servers, and databases, allowing independent testing and deployment.

Production environment infrastructure

Typically includes multiple web servers behind a load balancer for high availability, while non-production environments usually have a single web server.

Code deployment flow

Code moves from dev to stage to prod via Git branches (e.g., master, stage, prod) and deployment; content and configuration are not automatically synchronized.

Distributed file system

Acquia Cloud uses a distributed file system for the sites/default/files directory across web servers, but the database is not part of this file system.

Environment resizing

Each environment can be resized independently; production can have additional servers or higher memory/CPU to handle traffic.

Git repository per application

Acquia Cloud provides a Git repository per application; each environment has a branch that can be deployed.

Deployment triggers

Deployments are triggered via the Acquia Cloud UI, CLI (acli), or API, and deploy a specific branch or tag to an environment.

Automated deployment with Pipelines

Acquia Pipelines uses a YAML configuration file to automate deployment steps, including testing and post-deploy scripts.

Rollback code deployment

Code deployments can be rolled back to a previous codebase using the UI or CLI, but database rollbacks require restoring a backup.

Post-deploy hooks

Scripts that run after deployment (e.g., drush updatedb, cache clears) to perform necessary tasks automatically.

Configuration management importance

Drupal configuration is stored in the database by default; use the Configuration Management system to export/import YAML files for environment parity.

Environment parity maintenance

Maintain parity by keeping configuration in code and importing it across environments, not by copying databases.

Configuration sync feature

Acquia Cloud provides a configuration sync feature (via UI or CLI) to copy configuration from one environment to another.

Sensitive configuration storage

Store sensitive configuration (e.g., API keys) in environment-specific settings files or environment variables, not in exported configuration.

Environment-specific settings

Acquia Cloud supports environment-specific settings via settings.php inclusion based on environment variables (e.g., AH_SITE_ENVIRONMENT).

Config_split module

Manages environment-specific configuration (e.g., enabling devel in dev only) by splitting configuration into different sets.

Varnish caching

Acquia Cloud provides Varnish caching in front of web servers for anonymous traffic; cache can be purged via tags or entire cache.

Drupal internal cache

Stored in the database by default; use memcache or Redis for better performance (Acquia supports both).

Acquia Search

A hosted Apache Solr service; requires configuration of an index and can be used for search pages and views.

Cache layers

Caching layers include Varnish (page cache), memcache/Redis (Drupal cache), and CDN (static files); each must be purged appropriately.

New Relic monitoring

Acquia Cloud provides New Relic for performance monitoring; use it to identify slow queries and bottlenecks.

CDN for static assets

Use CDN (Acquia CDN) for static assets to offload traffic from the origin and improve performance.

Role-based access control

Acquia Cloud provides RBAC with roles like Administrator, Team Lead, Developer, and Viewer to control access.

SSH access control

SSH access is controlled via public key authentication; users must add their SSH keys to their Acquia Cloud account.

Compliance standards

Acquia Cloud is compliant with SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR; ensure that your application configures appropriate settings for compliance.

HTTPS and SSL/TLS

Use HTTPS with SSL/TLS certificates; Acquia provides free Let's Encrypt certificates or custom certificates.

Database access restriction

Access to the database can be restricted via IP whitelisting in the Acquia Cloud UI.

Audit logs

Audit logs are available for account and environment activities; monitor them for suspicious activity.

Logging via UI and CLI

Acquia Cloud provides logging via the UI (available logs: web server, PHP, database, Varnish) and via the CLI (acli).

Troubleshooting 500 errors

Check PHP error logs and Drupal watchdog logs; use drush ws to view recent logs.

Performance issue diagnosis

Check Varnish hit rate, database slow query log, and New Relic transaction traces.

Incident response steps

Identify the issue, mitigate (e.g., rollback, scale up), communicate, and conduct a post-mortem.