7 ms·

AppHarbor (YC W11): "Azure Done Right"

153 points by troethom 16y ago

Locke1689 16y ago
Why would you use Git on Windows instead of Mercurial? Also, it seems to me that SQL Azure alone may be worth using Azure instead. Disclaimer: I was an intern in the Microsoft SQL server group last year. Since I'm normally a POSIX kernel developer the rest of Azure was only mediumly interesting, but it seems like SQL Server is one of the really strong advantages of the Azure platform.
- vyrotek 16y ago
  I made a similar comment the first time I heard about these guys. We're a .Net based startup currently hosted in Azure and was really excited to learn about AppHarbor. But like you mentioned, there are some other very valuable services in Azure such as SQL Azure which still seem to make it much more attractive. We committed ourselves to the Azure platform because we also needed things like Table Storage and Message Queues. I'm not quite sure what their road-map looks like, but before claiming to be 'Azure done right' I'd like to see some tips on how I would run my Azure app within their service. I have to also admit that the GIT stuff basically prevents me from actually being able to play around with it right now.
  - troethom 16y ago
    One of the things we'd like with AppHarbor is to endorse best practices. This means that you'll probably not be able to run your Azure application in AppHarbor without modifications. This is not due to special requirements for AppHarbor, but because Azure requires special code. On the other hand, you are able to create a template ASP.NET MVC application and push it directly. Another thing is that we will never provide the full range of Microsoft solutions. Microsoft already does that. Our edge is that we can offer more than just Microsoft products, and as we're running in EC2, there's a whole range of providers offering additional value as well. For instance, we're going to support memcached, because it's industry standard. Microsoft will support Velocity, because that's what they make. I think this is a substantial and important difference. To sum it up, we're going to support file storage, message queues and what you need to build a scalable web application. Some may be the Microsoft flavor, and other may not.
    - DennisP 16y ago
      Hmm, being on EC2, are you going to provide access to SimpleDB, S3, SQS, and SNS? Seems to me that would bring it pretty close to Azure's feature list.
  - barranger 16y ago
    In terms of Table Storage, since they are running on EC2 instances if I'm not mistaken, couldn't you use Amazon's SDB?
    - Locke1689 16y ago
      As always, I think the Microsoft tool integration is better. Not sure if that's the limiting factor though.
  - tjogin 16y ago
    What problems are you guys having with git on Windows?
    - tpz 16y ago
      I honestly doubt that the various Git-knocking commenters on this story have any real experience using Git on Windows. They are likely just parroting what they have heard about the early days of Git on Windows. All of my Windows work during 2010 used Git and it was perfectly fine. The only thing that even comes to mind is that there was a tiny bit more effort with initial setup of SSH than on other platforms.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  I spent some time working with Azure and it was a nightmare. Really Azure should be as easy to use AppHarbor and its nowhere close. AppHarbor so far seems butter to me. It's something I think is needed for .NET devs. If Scottgu hasn't seen it, show it to him. ScottGu's patented demos would be great if he pushed his bits live up to AppHarbor. The big problem I have with AppHarbor right now is Git. Git on Windows kind of sucks, although it could just be my lack of knowledge about it. A Subversion version of AppHarbor would be sweet.
  - Locke1689 16y ago
    Git on Windows kind of sucks, although it could just be my lack of knowledge about it. No, it's because it was written with POSIX structure and assumptions in mind. Until someone takes the initiative to actually rewrite the git core targeted at the Windows environment, Git will always be a second class citizen on Windows.
  - cookiecaper 16y ago
    I use git on Windows all the time and have no problems with it after disabling the automatic crlf mangling. I am usually pretty confused why people act like Git doesn't work well on Windows. It works just as well for me; maybe a bit slower, but still definitely faster than other SCMs.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
javery 16y ago
As a fan of Heroku and Git I love seeing this and other efforts to duplicate their ease of deployment and process for .NET developers. However, I question whether there is enough of a market for these services to be truly successful. There are plenty of .NET developers using Git - but for the most part many of them are just now getting to Subversion - or even worse going with TFS (Microsoft's mess of a SCM). MS developers are also traditionally inside medium to large companies - the majority of which want their applications hosted in their own data centers. MS might be able to convince them to use Azure - but a small startup is going to have one helluva time convincing them to host their LOB app with them.
- barrydahlberg 16y ago
  They have me excited anyway.
- johns 16y ago
  If there were a market for better Windows VPSs, wouldn't that already exist? I think there's a lot of room for players in this market and something tells me you agree.
  - trezor 16y ago
    A friend of mine is the owner of a hosting-company and the last few years he has seen a rise in demand for good Windows-based hosting-solutions. As a consequence of this, he has reworked his provisioning systems both for shared hosts and VPSes to work smoothly with both Linux and Windows to the point that the only difference you will notice is the price-tag. Everything works out of the box. The platform you want, capacity you want, extras, applications etc. And this with no extra manual work for the company. The provisioning system is a massive enterprisey setup with at least 10 servers. I doubt he would have put in all this effort if it weren't for an actual demand in the market. That said (and despite getting free hosting as a "beta-tester" and Windows consultant), I'm going to give AppHarbor a try.
  - javery 16y ago
    There is a market for Windows VPSs - we already know that. We are just building a better mouse trap with Epic Win (which is what I think you are referencing). We definitely thought about going the AppHarbor route - and I can't lie that we might not go there at some point - I just think the market opportunity there is much less in the .NET space then in the Ruby space. (which is why we are focusing on VPSs right now)
elvirs 16y ago
This is great. I think a good payoff for all the work they've put in would come from acquisition by microsoft instead of selling this as a service to customers. Probably that's exactly what is on their mind.
- jswinghammer 16y ago
  Why would Microsoft buy them? I'd imagine someone else in the space would be interested in adding MS support to what they offer.
  - elvirs 16y ago
    may be to make Azure and other cloud products/services better.
jswinghammer 16y ago
This seems like a pretty cool service for those of us who prefer .Net and want cool things like everyone else gets.
- viggity 16y ago
  I kind of have to take exception to that. .Net is a phenomenal platform to develop for and has plenty of cool things to work with (including Silverlight and WPF). Everyone I talk to that has tried to do Android development and WP7 development comments on how much nicer and easier WP7 is to work with. And I call ease of use and eye candy pretty "cool".
  - jswinghammer 16y ago
    I don't consider WPF or Silverlight cool. I actually like .Net a lot and my comment said "those of us". My product runs on .Net and I use SQL Server 2008 and C# 4.
  - nkohari 16y ago
    Now you just need some people to actually buy WP7 phones.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
bjtitus 16y ago
I'm doing some very light work with .NET and am using AppHarbor right now. So far it's been fantastic. I wouldn't go so far to say that I'd choose it over Heroku or other stacks.
- trezor 16y ago
  Since you're obviously happy with the setup, I'm curious about what specific setup you used for git in Windows. Last time I tried it, it was (literally) a cluster-fuck which completely set me off git. Do you just use cygwin'd git wrappers? Do you use any additional tools? Any advice would be appreciated as I'd love to try this service out on its own merits (and not biased by git's lacking merits in a Windows environment).
  - latch 16y ago
    http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/ http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/
    - danpker 16y ago
      I second this, you can install straight from an installer and get a Git command line, Git GUI and a plugin for VS. It really is almost a one click process.
  - troethom 16y ago
    One of the things we do to make it easier is our support for basic authentication when pushing. This removes any requirement for getting SSH to work on Windows, which is usually the issue you'll run into.
    - trezor 16y ago
      Thanks for the reply. That sounds great and should definitely address one of my two major problems with git on Windows. The second one (with \'s vs /'s in paths) can iirc be fixed with some simple bash aliases for the git-console, so it should probably work out. Looking forward to try the service out :)
zvikara 16y ago
Anybody knows if AppHarbor is using Windows based servers or Linux+Mono?
- runesoerensen 16y ago
  The application and build servers are Windows based
meterplech 16y ago
Seems like a winning strategy to take a popular language/framework and make it incredibly simple and easy to deploy. As long as you have a very strong technical team I think this will be a successful YC exit every time. Either it can get huge due to great marketing, or the technology will be desperately sought after by larger hosting companies.
dstein 16y ago
The problem for them of course is they've chosen a dying platform. Microsoft's operating systems, mobile toolkit, and their entire technology stack as a whole is coming to a dead end. I have never met a developer younger than myself who uses any of Microsoft's technologies to build anything, and I don't see this ever changing.
- vyrotek 16y ago
  Ah yes, because you've never met anyone then that must mean its dead. I'm curious, how old are you? I'm 26 and working full time on a company I founded running completely on .Net and Azure.
  - dstein 16y ago
    Well I'm older than you are. And I didn't say it's dead. I said it's a dead end. Microsoft's dominance has absolutely been on the down slope for the past decade, and this time they will not recover. Your business will succeed if it does not depend on the particular technology stack you've chosen (eg a retail site). But for a hosting company that is dependent on the technology stack growing in popularity, Microsoft's stack is absolutely the poorest choice of all available programming systems to build a cloud hosting service.
    - NetMonkey 16y ago
      Could you give some examples of why Microsoft's stack is so bad and which ones are better? I often see these things thrown around but very seldomly with any good examples. We use Visual Studio + .NET + MSSql/SqlAzure and from time to time I take a look at what else is out there but I have a hard time seeing how any of it could make us more productive.
      - arethuza 16y ago
        Well, one example that recently irritated me terribly is the performance of VS2010 - on this laptop I'm using at the moment (which is a perfectly decent machine and runs VS2008 perfectly well) it just doesn't run acceptably. The OS has been rebuilt and just about every tweak possible has been applied - even a quick Google search shows that I'm not the only one having this problem. Now in the past I've used a lot of different development tools and in those cases there is a loose coupling between things like editors (e.g. emacs, vi) and a particular development platform. Now I rather like VS and C# - but the prospect of buying completely new hardware (work and home) just to make up for deficiencies in Microsoft's tools is driving me crazy. With .Net you really do have to use Visual Studio - if you don't then you probably have lost 70% of the benefits of the platform. If I was to move (actually move back) to using emacs or something as my main editor I might as well move completely to JavaScript, CouchDB and node.js - which was a direction I was moving in anyway for my own projects.
gscott 16y ago
What makes me mad about Azure is that they support PHP but not Asp "Classic". I might try it, if it supported my favorite technology.
- nkohari 16y ago
  Why in the world would they support a 10+ year old technology that's been replaced by a technology (ASP.NET WebForms) that's now also widely considered outdated?
  - gscott 16y ago
    Because there is a customer base who would pay for that. I pay $350 a month for a 1/4th rack colocation space and 15mbps bandwidth. If there was a comparable and compatable "cloud" option I might consider it.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
Hov 16y ago
I just signed up for it to take a look but couldn't find anything related to costs. How is this thing costed?
chwolfe 16y ago
Very cool. It will be interesting to see how successful AppHarbor can be without first establishing a competitor to Azure Appfabric.The service bus and access control inherit in Appfabric makes cloud computing palatable for enterprise companies.
rksprst 16y ago
We're using Azure heavily for Socialblaze. At first this seemed great, but for us to even consider switching we would need to know a few things: - How backups work - How does well does it scale - How is the MsSQL organized, shared db with thousands of users? - SSL is a must - Can't run any real web app without services, background processes - Pricing (bandwith, storage, etc.)
mgutz 16y ago
They lost 95% of the .NET developers. There's a command line involved.

153 points by troethom 16y ago

Why would you use Git on Windows instead of Mercurial? Also, it seems to me that SQL Azure alone may be worth using Azure instead. Disclaimer: I was an intern in the Microsoft SQL server group last year. Since I'm normally a POSIX kernel developer the rest of Azure was only mediumly interesting, but it seems like SQL Server is one of the really strong advantages of the Azure platform.

vyrotek 16y ago
I made a similar comment the first time I heard about these guys. We're a .Net based startup currently hosted in Azure and was really excited to learn about AppHarbor. But like you mentioned, there are some other very valuable services in Azure such as SQL Azure which still seem to make it much more attractive. We committed ourselves to the Azure platform because we also needed things like Table Storage and Message Queues. I'm not quite sure what their road-map looks like, but before claiming to be 'Azure done right' I'd like to see some tips on how I would run my Azure app within their service. I have to also admit that the GIT stuff basically prevents me from actually being able to play around with it right now.
- troethom 16y ago
  One of the things we'd like with AppHarbor is to endorse best practices. This means that you'll probably not be able to run your Azure application in AppHarbor without modifications. This is not due to special requirements for AppHarbor, but because Azure requires special code. On the other hand, you are able to create a template ASP.NET MVC application and push it directly. Another thing is that we will never provide the full range of Microsoft solutions. Microsoft already does that. Our edge is that we can offer more than just Microsoft products, and as we're running in EC2, there's a whole range of providers offering additional value as well. For instance, we're going to support memcached, because it's industry standard. Microsoft will support Velocity, because that's what they make. I think this is a substantial and important difference. To sum it up, we're going to support file storage, message queues and what you need to build a scalable web application. Some may be the Microsoft flavor, and other may not.
  - DennisP 16y ago
    Hmm, being on EC2, are you going to provide access to SimpleDB, S3, SQS, and SNS? Seems to me that would bring it pretty close to Azure's feature list.
- barranger 16y ago
  In terms of Table Storage, since they are running on EC2 instances if I'm not mistaken, couldn't you use Amazon's SDB?
  - Locke1689 16y ago
    As always, I think the Microsoft tool integration is better. Not sure if that's the limiting factor though.
- tjogin 16y ago
  What problems are you guys having with git on Windows?
  - tpz 16y ago
    I honestly doubt that the various Git-knocking commenters on this story have any real experience using Git on Windows. They are likely just parroting what they have heard about the early days of Git on Windows. All of my Windows work during 2010 used Git and it was perfectly fine. The only thing that even comes to mind is that there was a tiny bit more effort with initial setup of SSH than on other platforms.
kenjackson 16y ago
I spent some time working with Azure and it was a nightmare. Really Azure should be as easy to use AppHarbor and its nowhere close. AppHarbor so far seems butter to me. It's something I think is needed for .NET devs. If Scottgu hasn't seen it, show it to him. ScottGu's patented demos would be great if he pushed his bits live up to AppHarbor. The big problem I have with AppHarbor right now is Git. Git on Windows kind of sucks, although it could just be my lack of knowledge about it. A Subversion version of AppHarbor would be sweet.
- Locke1689 16y ago
  Git on Windows kind of sucks, although it could just be my lack of knowledge about it. No, it's because it was written with POSIX structure and assumptions in mind. Until someone takes the initiative to actually rewrite the git core targeted at the Windows environment, Git will always be a second class citizen on Windows.
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  I use git on Windows all the time and have no problems with it after disabling the automatic crlf mangling. I am usually pretty confused why people act like Git doesn't work well on Windows. It works just as well for me; maybe a bit slower, but still definitely faster than other SCMs.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]

javery 16y ago

As a fan of Heroku and Git I love seeing this and other efforts to duplicate their ease of deployment and process for .NET developers. However, I question whether there is enough of a market for these services to be truly successful. There are plenty of .NET developers using Git - but for the most part many of them are just now getting to Subversion - or even worse going with TFS (Microsoft's mess of a SCM). MS developers are also traditionally inside medium to large companies - the majority of which want their applications hosted in their own data centers. MS might be able to convince them to use Azure - but a small startup is going to have one helluva time convincing them to host their LOB app with them.

barrydahlberg 16y ago
They have me excited anyway.
johns 16y ago
If there were a market for better Windows VPSs, wouldn't that already exist? I think there's a lot of room for players in this market and something tells me you agree.
- trezor 16y ago
  A friend of mine is the owner of a hosting-company and the last few years he has seen a rise in demand for good Windows-based hosting-solutions. As a consequence of this, he has reworked his provisioning systems both for shared hosts and VPSes to work smoothly with both Linux and Windows to the point that the only difference you will notice is the price-tag. Everything works out of the box. The platform you want, capacity you want, extras, applications etc. And this with no extra manual work for the company. The provisioning system is a massive enterprisey setup with at least 10 servers. I doubt he would have put in all this effort if it weren't for an actual demand in the market. That said (and despite getting free hosting as a "beta-tester" and Windows consultant), I'm going to give AppHarbor a try.
- javery 16y ago
  There is a market for Windows VPSs - we already know that. We are just building a better mouse trap with Epic Win (which is what I think you are referencing). We definitely thought about going the AppHarbor route - and I can't lie that we might not go there at some point - I just think the market opportunity there is much less in the .NET space then in the Ruby space. (which is why we are focusing on VPSs right now)

elvirs 16y ago

This is great. I think a good payoff for all the work they've put in would come from acquisition by microsoft instead of selling this as a service to customers. Probably that's exactly what is on their mind.

jswinghammer 16y ago
Why would Microsoft buy them? I'd imagine someone else in the space would be interested in adding MS support to what they offer.
- elvirs 16y ago
  may be to make Azure and other cloud products/services better.

jswinghammer 16y ago

This seems like a pretty cool service for those of us who prefer .Net and want cool things like everyone else gets.

viggity 16y ago
I kind of have to take exception to that. .Net is a phenomenal platform to develop for and has plenty of cool things to work with (including Silverlight and WPF). Everyone I talk to that has tried to do Android development and WP7 development comments on how much nicer and easier WP7 is to work with. And I call ease of use and eye candy pretty "cool".
- jswinghammer 16y ago
  I don't consider WPF or Silverlight cool. I actually like .Net a lot and my comment said "those of us". My product runs on .Net and I use SQL Server 2008 and C# 4.
- nkohari 16y ago
  Now you just need some people to actually buy WP7 phones.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

bjtitus 16y ago

I'm doing some very light work with .NET and am using AppHarbor right now. So far it's been fantastic. I wouldn't go so far to say that I'd choose it over Heroku or other stacks.

trezor 16y ago
Since you're obviously happy with the setup, I'm curious about what specific setup you used for git in Windows. Last time I tried it, it was (literally) a cluster-fuck which completely set me off git. Do you just use cygwin'd git wrappers? Do you use any additional tools? Any advice would be appreciated as I'd love to try this service out on its own merits (and not biased by git's lacking merits in a Windows environment).
- latch 16y ago
  http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/ http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/
  - danpker 16y ago
    I second this, you can install straight from an installer and get a Git command line, Git GUI and a plugin for VS. It really is almost a one click process.
- troethom 16y ago
  One of the things we do to make it easier is our support for basic authentication when pushing. This removes any requirement for getting SSH to work on Windows, which is usually the issue you'll run into.
  - trezor 16y ago
    Thanks for the reply. That sounds great and should definitely address one of my two major problems with git on Windows. The second one (with \'s vs /'s in paths) can iirc be fixed with some simple bash aliases for the git-console, so it should probably work out. Looking forward to try the service out :)

zvikara 16y ago

Anybody knows if AppHarbor is using Windows based servers or Linux+Mono?

runesoerensen 16y ago
The application and build servers are Windows based

meterplech 16y ago

Seems like a winning strategy to take a popular language/framework and make it incredibly simple and easy to deploy. As long as you have a very strong technical team I think this will be a successful YC exit every time. Either it can get huge due to great marketing, or the technology will be desperately sought after by larger hosting companies.

dstein 16y ago

The problem for them of course is they've chosen a dying platform. Microsoft's operating systems, mobile toolkit, and their entire technology stack as a whole is coming to a dead end. I have never met a developer younger than myself who uses any of Microsoft's technologies to build anything, and I don't see this ever changing.

vyrotek 16y ago
Ah yes, because you've never met anyone then that must mean its dead. I'm curious, how old are you? I'm 26 and working full time on a company I founded running completely on .Net and Azure.
- dstein 16y ago
  Well I'm older than you are. And I didn't say it's dead. I said it's a dead end. Microsoft's dominance has absolutely been on the down slope for the past decade, and this time they will not recover. Your business will succeed if it does not depend on the particular technology stack you've chosen (eg a retail site). But for a hosting company that is dependent on the technology stack growing in popularity, Microsoft's stack is absolutely the poorest choice of all available programming systems to build a cloud hosting service.
  - NetMonkey 16y ago
    Could you give some examples of why Microsoft's stack is so bad and which ones are better? I often see these things thrown around but very seldomly with any good examples. We use Visual Studio + .NET + MSSql/SqlAzure and from time to time I take a look at what else is out there but I have a hard time seeing how any of it could make us more productive.
    - arethuza 16y ago
      Well, one example that recently irritated me terribly is the performance of VS2010 - on this laptop I'm using at the moment (which is a perfectly decent machine and runs VS2008 perfectly well) it just doesn't run acceptably. The OS has been rebuilt and just about every tweak possible has been applied - even a quick Google search shows that I'm not the only one having this problem. Now in the past I've used a lot of different development tools and in those cases there is a loose coupling between things like editors (e.g. emacs, vi) and a particular development platform. Now I rather like VS and C# - but the prospect of buying completely new hardware (work and home) just to make up for deficiencies in Microsoft's tools is driving me crazy. With .Net you really do have to use Visual Studio - if you don't then you probably have lost 70% of the benefits of the platform. If I was to move (actually move back) to using emacs or something as my main editor I might as well move completely to JavaScript, CouchDB and node.js - which was a direction I was moving in anyway for my own projects.

gscott 16y ago

What makes me mad about Azure is that they support PHP but not Asp "Classic". I might try it, if it supported my favorite technology.

nkohari 16y ago
Why in the world would they support a 10+ year old technology that's been replaced by a technology (ASP.NET WebForms) that's now also widely considered outdated?
- gscott 16y ago
  Because there is a customer base who would pay for that. I pay $350 a month for a 1/4th rack colocation space and 15mbps bandwidth. If there was a comparable and compatable "cloud" option I might consider it.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

Hov 16y ago

I just signed up for it to take a look but couldn't find anything related to costs. How is this thing costed?

chwolfe 16y ago

Very cool. It will be interesting to see how successful AppHarbor can be without first establishing a competitor to Azure Appfabric.The service bus and access control inherit in Appfabric makes cloud computing palatable for enterprise companies.

rksprst 16y ago

We're using Azure heavily for Socialblaze. At first this seemed great, but for us to even consider switching we would need to know a few things: - How backups work - How does well does it scale - How is the MsSQL organized, shared db with thousands of users? - SSL is a must - Can't run any real web app without services, background processes - Pricing (bandwith, storage, etc.)

mgutz 16y ago

They lost 95% of the .NET developers. There's a command line involved.