Shared AWS Hosting Platform for PHP Applications

As a Cloud Engineer at NXP Semiconductors, I contributed to designing and deploying WebStack, a shared hosting platform on AWS developed to simplify the migration and management of internal web applications.

During a large-scale cloud migration involving hundreds of applications, we identified numerous legacy PHP and Python websites running on dedicated servers, often with minimal infrastructure requirements.

Rather than migrating each application to its own AWS infrastructure, we decided to consolidate them into a standardized hosting solution distributed across Asia, Europe, and the Americas. WebStack combines shared web servers, load balancers, database infrastructure, and network-attached storage (NAS), while allowing application owners to continue managing their own files and application content.

We also integrated the platform with ServiceNow, allowing application administrators to request hosting for additional applications. The platform launched with 35 migrated websites, establishing a reusable hosting service and helping standardize NXP's internal cloud infrastructure.

Project context - Migrating many application with same infrastructure

During NXP's migration from on-premises data centers to AWS, I worked on migrating numerous applications developed internally over several years. Many of these applications were relatively small PHP or Python websites used by CAD engineering teams to display simulation results, regression reports, technical information, or outputs from internal automation scripts. Despite their simplicity, they were often hosted on dedicated servers, each requiring its own operating system maintenance, configuration, and infrastructure support.

Another challenge was that many applications were legacy systems with no active development team maintaining them. Our migration strategy was primarily based on rehosting, but reproducing a dedicated infrastructure for every small application would have created unnecessary operational complexity. We therefore decided to build WebStack, a centralized hosting service capable of supporting multiple independent applications on shared infrastructure.

Designing and Deploying WebStack on AWS

I contributed to implementing the shared hosting infrastructure across the AWS environments targeted by the migration program. The platform was deployed geographically across Asia, Europe, and the Americas to support applications used by NXP's globally distributed engineering teams. Its architecture included:

• Shared Web Servers: Hosting multiple PHP and Python applications on standardized EC2 infrastructure.
• Load Balancers: Distributing incoming traffic across the hosting infrastructure and regions using AWS ELB Service.
• Shared Database Servers: Providing database services to applications that required persistent data storage accross different regions using AWS Aurora.
• NAS Storage : Providing shared AWS FSx filesystems accessible to both the hosting infrastructure and application owners so they can edit code without having to connect to the webstack infrastructure.

This architecture allowed us to consolidate multiple applications while maintaining their individual functionality. It also provided a common infrastructure model that our team could maintain consistently across different AWS hosting locations.

Preserving Application Owners' Autonomy

One important requirement was ensuring that application owners could continue working with their websites without depending on the infrastructure team for every change. Many applications were directly connected to CAD engineering workflows and needed regular file updates to publish simulation results, regression reports, or other generated data. We implemented shared NAS storage using AWS FSx and provided the appropriate access to business and engineering teams. This allowed application owners to:

• Update website files and content.
• Publish generated engineering results.
• Maintain or extend their applications.
• Continue using existing application workflows.

Meanwhile, our team remained responsible for the underlying servers, storage infrastructure, databases, and system administration. This established a clear separation between application ownership and infrastructure management.

Integrating WebStack with ServiceNow

We also wanted WebStack to become a long-term internal service rather than a one-time migration solution. To achieve this, we created ServiceNow service requests allowing application administrators to request hosting for additional applications. This introduced a standardized entry point for onboarding new websites and reduced the need to design a custom hosting solution for every application.

Although new internal applications were relatively uncommon, the platform was immediately adopted during the cloud migration, with 35 websites onboarded from the beginning.

• Identify 35 good application candidate for webstack (simple PHP or Python stack, non-technical team who struggle managing the OPS part),
• Put in place the AWS services such as multi-region EC2 webservers pools, and the ELB services,
• Plan & Perform the application migration (filesystem migration using AWS DataSync, database replication in AWS, DNS switching)
• Support users for the new way of working

• Consolidated 35 internal websites: Migrated legacy PHP and Python applications into a shared AWS hosting platform.
• Standardized web hosting infrastructure: Established a common architecture across AWS environments in Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
• Introduced a reusable internal hosting service: Integrated WebStack with ServiceNow to standardize requests for new application hosting.