Tag: tech-ref

Node.js applications often require a “build step” because they use a syntax or feature that is not natively supported by Node.js. Applications may also use a build step to prefetch data, pre-render HTML, compile or minify static assets, or similar preparatory work that must be performed before the application can be started.

VIP supports WebSocket connections for Node.js environments. The WebSocket API allows long-running, two-way communication between a client and a server. WebSockets on WordPress VIP are designed to support small-scale, bidirectional, real-time data flows.

The cache health check endpoint is used to determine whether an application container is healthy, and allows the VIP edge load balancers to identify application containers that are extremely busy or non-responsive. If the health check request is not handled quickly, or if it returns a HTTP status code other than 200, the application container will be marked “unhealthy”. Unhealthy containers will not receive traffic for a short time until they have recovered.

Environment variables are used to provide information to an application. This circumvents the need to hardcode configuration values and allows an application to have environment-specific behavior. On the VIP Platform, environment variables are provided when a Node.js application is built and at runtime.

Redis is an optional add-on for Node.js environments on the WordPress VIP Platform. The primary purpose of Redis is to act as an in-memory datastore that is shared across application containers, but it has a rich feature set including “pub/sub” messaging.

VIP supports all Node.js Long Term Support (LTS) releases in Active or Maintenance status—as well as the next Active LTS candidate—for Node.js environments.