[FIXED] How to deploy a web app that needs regular access to large data files

Issue

I am trying to deploy a web app I have written, but I am stuck with one element. The bulk of it is just an Angular application that interacts with a MongoDB database, thats all fine. Where I am stuck is that I need local read access to around 10Gb of files (geoTiff digital elevation models) - these dont change and are broken down into 500 or so files. Each time my app needs geographic elevations, it needs to find the right file, read the right bit of the files, return the data - the quicker the better. To reiterate, I am not serving these files, just reading data from them.

In development these files are on my machine and I have no problems, but the files seem to be too large to bundle in the Angular app (runs out of memory), and too large to include in any backend assets folder. I've looked at two serverless cloud hosting platforms (GCP and Heroku) both of which limit the size of the deployed files to around 1Gb (if I remember right). I have considered using cloud storage for the files, but I'm worried about negative performance as each time I need a file it would need to be downloaded from the cloud to the application. The only solution I can think of is to use a VM based service like Google Compute and use an API service to recieve requests from the app and deliver back the required data, but I had hoped it could be more co-located (not least cos that solution costs more $$)...

I'm new to deployment so any advice welcome.

Solution

Load your data to a GIS DB, like PostGIS. Then have your app query this DB, instead of the local raster files.

Answered By - Dave

Answer Checked By - Katrina (PHPFixing Volunteer)