4 ms·

Deis – An open source PaaS

69 points by gionn 13y ago

morgante 13y ago
Can someone explain how this is different from Docker? As someone who hasn't used either, I'd really appreciate an explanation of the nuanced differences/how they relate.
- peterwaller 13y ago
  docker is the brains, by talking to the operating system it makes easy to use OS containers (which are analogous to VMs but much cheaper since they are one process rather than a whole "machine"). Deis is for orchestration. He's the conductor of the orchestra. It's the next level up, for managing how multiple containers get set up and talk to one another.
- gabrtv 13y ago
  peterwaller got it right, but let me try and give a little more color. Deis is provides a private Heroku-like platform powered by Docker & Chef. Once Deis is up and running, developers deploy with `git push deis master` and they automatically get a configurable number of Docker "runtime" containers spread across multiple VM hosts, a set of Nginx proxies that route traffic to the Docker containers, resulting in a fully functional distributed application. How does this work? With Deis the ops folks initialize a "formation" that includes multiple VMs/instances for a) hosting Docker containers and b) proxying traffic into those containers. When a developer creates a new application, pushes a new build, sets an environment variable, etc.. Deis automatically builds the Docker image, distributes it, executes it and reconfigures Nginx proxies to route traffic to it. Chef is used to store platform state and orchestrate changes across the formation.
JoshGlazebrook 13y ago
"Deis is designed to work with any cloud provider, although only EC2 is currently supported." Any idea when out of the box Azure support is coming?
- gabrtv 13y ago
  We started the Azure integration and got hung up with their Python SDK. We're actively working with the Microsoft guys on it, but I wouldn't expect anything usable for a few months.
chanux 13y ago
Previous discussion http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6167712 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6167712
bsaul 13y ago
Anyone with hands on experience to compare Deis to something like salt cloud (from saltstack) ? I know one is using chef and the other is using saltstack, but i'm talking configuration, ease of deployment and reliability.
awhitty 13y ago
This is an awesome example of the kinds of things Docker is making possible. It seems like these PaaS solutions are just sprouting up left and right now, and it's exciting! It wasn't so long ago that "deploying" meant dragging folders into an FTP window and hoping things worked just fine.
- derefr 13y ago
  It surely is exciting, but I do wish more people would throw in with the Docker-based PaaSes that already have some momentum (Dokku, Flynn, etc.), rather than making their own. I mean, I guess the required glue left over is about on the level of a static site generator, which explains why everyone thinks doing one as a weekend project will be great fun--but just like a static site generator, one weekend (or even one fulltime developer) isn't gonna make something I'm willing to build projects for clients on top of. Which is something I really, really want to do. So let's pick a project to be "the Rails of PaaSes" soon, okay? I neeeed one. :)
  - vinceguidry 13y ago
    I started to use Dokku, got it installed and my app deployed, then realized that it only supported one app. Such a strange design decision for a virtualization platform. It really drove home to me how unfinished these new PaaS solutions are. We're still another five years or so from "the Rails of PaaSes". I'm going to double down on 12 factor. The kind of encapsulation involved, storing the app in code, config in the environment, data in persisted resources, is ten times better than virtualization.
    - derefr 13y ago
      That's an odd statement. Isn't 12-factor a requirement for Docker apps? It's not like you're "stopping and forking containers" in production; that's just a convenience for development. The image you deploy to production is supposed to be a sealed "slug" with an ephemeral container on top, like on Heroku.
      - 13y ago
nivertech 13y ago
So the perceived value of Flynn vs. Deis will be that it's: 1. implemented in Go vs. Python+Ruby which means no dependencies, easier install, etc. 2. Modular architecture: in addition to Docker will also use CoreOS and etcd.
- gabrtv 13y ago
  I would say Deis's perceived value is: 1. Built using DevOps tools widely in use (i.e. Chef) so it integrates easily into most environments and is an easier sell to conservative Ops teams 2. Implemented with Django, Celery and other components that may not be as sexy as writing from scratch in Go, but are battle tested -- which is a big plus for application platforms. In my opinion, there's room for both approaches in the Docker PaaS world.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

69 points by gionn 13y ago

Can someone explain how this is different from Docker? As someone who hasn't used either, I'd really appreciate an explanation of the nuanced differences/how they relate.

peterwaller 13y ago
docker is the brains, by talking to the operating system it makes easy to use OS containers (which are analogous to VMs but much cheaper since they are one process rather than a whole "machine"). Deis is for orchestration. He's the conductor of the orchestra. It's the next level up, for managing how multiple containers get set up and talk to one another.
gabrtv 13y ago
peterwaller got it right, but let me try and give a little more color. Deis is provides a private Heroku-like platform powered by Docker & Chef. Once Deis is up and running, developers deploy with `git push deis master` and they automatically get a configurable number of Docker "runtime" containers spread across multiple VM hosts, a set of Nginx proxies that route traffic to the Docker containers, resulting in a fully functional distributed application. How does this work? With Deis the ops folks initialize a "formation" that includes multiple VMs/instances for a) hosting Docker containers and b) proxying traffic into those containers. When a developer creates a new application, pushes a new build, sets an environment variable, etc.. Deis automatically builds the Docker image, distributes it, executes it and reconfigures Nginx proxies to route traffic to it. Chef is used to store platform state and orchestrate changes across the formation.

JoshGlazebrook 13y ago

"Deis is designed to work with any cloud provider, although only EC2 is currently supported." Any idea when out of the box Azure support is coming?

gabrtv 13y ago
We started the Azure integration and got hung up with their Python SDK. We're actively working with the Microsoft guys on it, but I wouldn't expect anything usable for a few months.

chanux 13y ago

Previous discussion http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6167712 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6167712

bsaul 13y ago

Anyone with hands on experience to compare Deis to something like salt cloud (from saltstack) ? I know one is using chef and the other is using saltstack, but i'm talking configuration, ease of deployment and reliability.

awhitty 13y ago

This is an awesome example of the kinds of things Docker is making possible. It seems like these PaaS solutions are just sprouting up left and right now, and it's exciting! It wasn't so long ago that "deploying" meant dragging folders into an FTP window and hoping things worked just fine.

derefr 13y ago
It surely is exciting, but I do wish more people would throw in with the Docker-based PaaSes that already have some momentum (Dokku, Flynn, etc.), rather than making their own. I mean, I guess the required glue left over is about on the level of a static site generator, which explains why everyone thinks doing one as a weekend project will be great fun--but just like a static site generator, one weekend (or even one fulltime developer) isn't gonna make something I'm willing to build projects for clients on top of. Which is something I really, really want to do. So let's pick a project to be "the Rails of PaaSes" soon, okay? I neeeed one. :)
- vinceguidry 13y ago
  I started to use Dokku, got it installed and my app deployed, then realized that it only supported one app. Such a strange design decision for a virtualization platform. It really drove home to me how unfinished these new PaaS solutions are. We're still another five years or so from "the Rails of PaaSes". I'm going to double down on 12 factor. The kind of encapsulation involved, storing the app in code, config in the environment, data in persisted resources, is ten times better than virtualization.
  - derefr 13y ago
    That's an odd statement. Isn't 12-factor a requirement for Docker apps? It's not like you're "stopping and forking containers" in production; that's just a convenience for development. The image you deploy to production is supposed to be a sealed "slug" with an ephemeral container on top, like on Heroku.
    - 13y ago

nivertech 13y ago

So the perceived value of Flynn vs. Deis will be that it's: 1. implemented in Go vs. Python+Ruby which means no dependencies, easier install, etc. 2. Modular architecture: in addition to Docker will also use CoreOS and etcd.

gabrtv 13y ago
I would say Deis's perceived value is: 1. Built using DevOps tools widely in use (i.e. Chef) so it integrates easily into most environments and is an easier sell to conservative Ops teams 2. Implemented with Django, Celery and other components that may not be as sexy as writing from scratch in Go, but are battle tested -- which is a big plus for application platforms. In my opinion, there's room for both approaches in the Docker PaaS world.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]