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Step 4: Review the Architecture — Digital Planning Register Walkthrough

Understand the AWS infrastructure and how the register connects to BOPS

Walkthrough progress

Step 4 of 4 • 2 minutes

Step 4 2 minutes

Review the Architecture

Explore the AWS infrastructure behind the register and understand how it fits into the Open Digital Planning ecosystem.

ECS Fargate cluster running the Digital Planning Register — a single lightweight container

Expected outcome

  • ECS cluster shows the running Fargate task
  • CloudWatch Logs shows application request logs
  • You understand how the components connect

Explore the AWS infrastructure

  1. Check the ECS cluster

    Open the ECSClusterUrl from the CloudFormation outputs. You'll see:

    • NdxDpr-Web service — one running task (the Next.js application)
    • Task definition — 0.5 vCPU, 1 GB memory (Next.js is lightweight)
    • Public IP — the Fargate task has a public IP for ALB health checks
  2. View the logs

    Open the CloudWatchLogsUrl to see application logs. You'll see Next.js server-side rendering logs showing:

    • Page requests and API calls to council BOPS endpoints
    • ISR (Incremental Static Regeneration) cache revalidations
    • Any errors from API connectivity
  3. Understand the architecture

    The deployment is intentionally simple:

    Component AWS Service Purpose
    Application ECS Fargate Runs the Next.js Docker container
    Load Balancer ALB Routes traffic and health checks
    HTTPS CloudFront TLS termination and caching
    Networking VPC Isolated network with public subnets
    Logging CloudWatch Container logs and monitoring

    Notice what's not here: no database, no Redis, no S3. The register is a stateless application that reads from external BOPS APIs. This makes it simple to deploy, scale, and maintain.

How it connects to BOPS

System Role NDX:Try scenario
BOPS Back-office case management for planning officers Back Office Planning System
Digital Planning Register Public-facing register for residents This scenario
Stateless by design: The register deliberately has no database. All planning data lives in the council's BOPS system. The register is a read-only view that can be deployed, scaled, or replaced without affecting any data. This separation of concerns is a key architectural principle.

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