51 ms·

Heroku: Announcing the Add-on Provider Program

90 points by jnl 16y ago

thetrumanshow 16y ago
Free idea here. Create an add-on that monitors your load and tells you when you've probably got too many workers and dynos. Credit goes to the guy who got stuck with the $1300 Heroku bill... he inspired this idea. link: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1688904 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1688904
- sabat 16y ago
  This is such a good and obviously needed idea that it makes me want to run out and implement it tonight. (No guarantees that I'll do it, but I'm 100% sure someone will.)
- siong1987 16y ago
  an addon might be overkilled. try the heroku gem. you can check out the example here: http://github.com/pedro/delayed_job/tree/autoscaling http://github.com/pedro/delayed_job/tree/autoscaling for worker, you might have to track the number of jobs in your queue. for dyno, you might have to track the number of requests you get within a time period.
- zach 16y ago
  Even easier would be an add-on that allows you to bump up your resources for a pre-determined time period, after which they return to baseline values. That way there would be no need for further user intervention at all.
judofyr 16y ago
I'm waiting for the recursive add-on: Someone creates an add-on, hosts it on Heroku and then enables the add-on in the add-on app.
- pvh 16y ago
  I'm already building an addon as a Heroku app. Of course, I work for Heroku, so it probably doesn't count.
  - judofyr 16y ago
    You're missing an important detail: Start using the add-on in the Heroku app. Since the add-on provides feature x, you can simply depend on it and remove feature x from the Heroku app :-)
    - pvh 16y ago
      Way ahead of you. The tricky part is being able to bootstrap if the service crashes. It's pretty neat being able to basically provide artificial respiration for your web app in an emergency.
- waratuman 16y ago
  The add-on that I've built has the provisioning system and server management portion on Heroku.
mark_l_watson 16y ago
I didn't see (from a quick reading of the docs) how developers get paid: via Heroku, or a direct charge to end users?
- jon_dahl 16y ago
  It's via Heroku. They handle customer management and billing, and send revenue to you (after taking a cut).
- grep 16y ago
  70% for you, 30% for Heroku.
PStamatiou 16y ago
Notifo definitely needs to get on this..
tfe 16y ago
Is anyone else stunned at how thorough and complete the documentation and support materials are for this launch? I was blown away. Great job guys!
- cmelbye 16y ago
  Definitely. I was just playing with kensa, which is a tool that they wrote for automatically testing your add-on. It checks to make sure everything is working properly. This includes your settings manifest, provisioning services, deprovisioning services, making sure the add-on is secure, etc.
wrs 16y ago
I'm kind of disappointed at the "neutral marketplace" philosophy. I'd prefer a "curated marketplace" where the Herokuans could be opinionated about what works best (in general, and with Heroku). Metrics are great but I actually value the opinion of the people who built and run Heroku more. (Of course their opinion could be a metric, but it didn't sound like it in the announcement.)

90 points by jnl 16y ago

Free idea here. Create an add-on that monitors your load and tells you when you've probably got too many workers and dynos. Credit goes to the guy who got stuck with the $1300 Heroku bill... he inspired this idea. link: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1688904 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1688904

sabat 16y ago
This is such a good and obviously needed idea that it makes me want to run out and implement it tonight. (No guarantees that I'll do it, but I'm 100% sure someone will.)
siong1987 16y ago
an addon might be overkilled. try the heroku gem. you can check out the example here: http://github.com/pedro/delayed_job/tree/autoscaling http://github.com/pedro/delayed_job/tree/autoscaling for worker, you might have to track the number of jobs in your queue. for dyno, you might have to track the number of requests you get within a time period.
zach 16y ago
Even easier would be an add-on that allows you to bump up your resources for a pre-determined time period, after which they return to baseline values. That way there would be no need for further user intervention at all.

judofyr 16y ago

I'm waiting for the recursive add-on: Someone creates an add-on, hosts it on Heroku and then enables the add-on in the add-on app.

pvh 16y ago
I'm already building an addon as a Heroku app. Of course, I work for Heroku, so it probably doesn't count.
- judofyr 16y ago
  You're missing an important detail: Start using the add-on in the Heroku app. Since the add-on provides feature x, you can simply depend on it and remove feature x from the Heroku app :-)
  - pvh 16y ago
    Way ahead of you. The tricky part is being able to bootstrap if the service crashes. It's pretty neat being able to basically provide artificial respiration for your web app in an emergency.
waratuman 16y ago
The add-on that I've built has the provisioning system and server management portion on Heroku.

mark_l_watson 16y ago

I didn't see (from a quick reading of the docs) how developers get paid: via Heroku, or a direct charge to end users?

jon_dahl 16y ago
It's via Heroku. They handle customer management and billing, and send revenue to you (after taking a cut).
grep 16y ago
70% for you, 30% for Heroku.

PStamatiou 16y ago

Notifo definitely needs to get on this..

tfe 16y ago

Is anyone else stunned at how thorough and complete the documentation and support materials are for this launch? I was blown away. Great job guys!

cmelbye 16y ago
Definitely. I was just playing with kensa, which is a tool that they wrote for automatically testing your add-on. It checks to make sure everything is working properly. This includes your settings manifest, provisioning services, deprovisioning services, making sure the add-on is secure, etc.

wrs 16y ago

I'm kind of disappointed at the "neutral marketplace" philosophy. I'd prefer a "curated marketplace" where the Herokuans could be opinionated about what works best (in general, and with Heroku). Metrics are great but I actually value the opinion of the people who built and run Heroku more. (Of course their opinion could be a metric, but it didn't sound like it in the announcement.)