With the website officially live, I can now shift my focus on building. Let me share a glimpse into the architecture powering this platform. I'll dive deeper into each component in future posts.
The site runs on Ghost CMS, deployed on a GCP e2-medium instance with SQLite as the database. I've implemented automated backups through cron jobs to ensure data resilience. The infrastructure includes a load balancer for traffic management and SSL termination, while a Managed Instance Group handles health checks and resource allocation.
I built a custom webhook system that solves a classic CDN problem: keeping content fresh without sacrificing performance. The webhook listens on port 3001 and triggers specifically on content events. When I publish, update, or delete posts and pages, it automatically invalidates the GCP CDN cache. User events, settings changes, and other noise get filtered out. Just smart, selective cache clearing.
The system includes proper error handling, returns JSON responses for monitoring, and maintains detailed logs of every invalidation. This means visitors always get the latest content instantly after I hit publish, while static assets remain cached for optimal performance. It's the same approach production news sites use to deliver fresh content globally with minimal latency.
This might seem like overkill for a personal blog. It absolutely is. But that's exactly the point.
My goal is to experiment extensively and replicate production grade environments. While my traffic doesn't demand this level of infrastructure yet, building it teaches me invaluable lessons about scalability, reliability, and best practices. You learn best by doing, and this hands on approach is how I'm choosing to grow as an engineer.
This journey is just beginning, and I'm excited to share what I discover along the way.
I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Confucius:
