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Okay, but what is the Heroku's endgame here? Their dynos are way overpriced and migrating from Heroku to Docker infrastructure(or other PaaS/IaaS combination) o

by vdaniuk 12y ago

Okay, but what is the Heroku's endgame here? Their dynos are way overpriced and migrating from Heroku to Docker infrastructure(or other PaaS/IaaS combination) on the scaling stage of startup lifecycle could save $x0 000 and $x00 000 per month for resource intensive apps. Do they want startups migrating as soon as they start scaling? I don't think so. They definitely have some lock-in strategies in the works. Lock in may be not technological per se, but a behavioural one, like in a Github to git network effect. That "Deploy" button is one clear path to lock-in. But I agree, Docker ecosystem is not mature enough and doesn't have its own killer app, platfrom or collaboration process. Though with the acyclic directed graph model of building containers they may have stumbled onto something really big. I can say with 100% confidence that it's really exciting to observe the evolution of the hosting industry and the overlapping between production and development environments.

bryanlarsen 12y ago
"Do they want startups migrating as soon as they start scaling?" Actually, I do think they want most startups to migrate as they scale up. Heroku does not want to compete with AWS; their story is value-add. Their pricing will always be non-competitive for larger apps and larger apps will be migrating away anyway. So rather than fight it, they embrace it. By making migration easy they make their service much more attractive to the little guys. After all, everybody expects that their little app is going to grow huge one day. Heroku makes their money from the large majority that haven't gotten huge yet and probably never will.
- vdaniuk 12y ago
  That's an interesting thought for sure. But consider that with an advent of golang, node.js and other faster (compared to python and ruby) languages/frameworks coupled with microservices architecture most (maybe 80%) startups will not exceed 10 or 15 free dynos. Those who need vertical scaling may pay for 2 or 3 dyno workers. Where's the scalable business model for Heroku in this scenario? So I am not sure that Heroku wants startups to migrate.
al2o3cr 12y ago
"They definitely have some lock-in strategies in the works." You are aware that the "P" in PaaS doesn't stand for "paranoia", right?

by vdaniuk 12y ago

bryanlarsen 12y ago

"Do they want startups migrating as soon as they start scaling?" Actually, I do think they want most startups to migrate as they scale up. Heroku does not want to compete with AWS; their story is value-add. Their pricing will always be non-competitive for larger apps and larger apps will be migrating away anyway. So rather than fight it, they embrace it. By making migration easy they make their service much more attractive to the little guys. After all, everybody expects that their little app is going to grow huge one day. Heroku makes their money from the large majority that haven't gotten huge yet and probably never will.

vdaniuk 12y ago
That's an interesting thought for sure. But consider that with an advent of golang, node.js and other faster (compared to python and ruby) languages/frameworks coupled with microservices architecture most (maybe 80%) startups will not exceed 10 or 15 free dynos. Those who need vertical scaling may pay for 2 or 3 dyno workers. Where's the scalable business model for Heroku in this scenario? So I am not sure that Heroku wants startups to migrate.

al2o3cr 12y ago

"They definitely have some lock-in strategies in the works." You are aware that the "P" in PaaS doesn't stand for "paranoia", right?