Architecture Advice for Research Portal (DRF + Next.js)
I’m currently developing a research portal locally on my Mac using Django REST Framework (DRF) for the backend and Next.js for the frontend. We’re now preparing to move the project to a Test server environment. Our university’s IT Services team has asked for deployment specifications, including whether we need two separate servers for the frontend and backend. The database will be hosted on a dedicated server, and everything will be placed behind a load balancer and firewall.
Given that this portal will host research data (real-time Data entry forms, real-time reports, etc), I’m trying to understand the best practices for security and performance:
Is it recommended to host the frontend and backend on separate servers?
What are the pros and cons of separating them vs. hosting both on a single server?
What web servers are commonly used in this kind of setup?
Are there any other security or architectural considerations I should be aware of?
Have read few blogs and googled around but mixed responses and not specific to my requirements. SO asking here as I do not have much IT people experienced in this stack in our Uni.