Introduction

  • Heroku 101 provides an overview of Heroku's platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering, highlighting its simplicity and utility for developers.

Key Concepts

  • Confusion as a Service:
    • SaaS (Software as a Service): For software users, providing more features and transparent updates (e.g., Facebook, Trello).
    • IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service): For operations, offering on-demand machine resources (e.g., AWS, Digital Ocean).
    • PaaS (Platform as a Service): For developers, offering transparent updates with no need to manage serversPaaS represented a fundamental shift in developer workflow, abstracting away infrastructure concerns and enabling rapid prototyping and deployment that influenced the entire industry. (e.g., Heroku, App Engine).

Using Heroku with Python

  • Locally:

    • Create a virtual environment and install dependencies using pip.
    • Run a Python web server with python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000.

  • On Heroku:

    • Install dependencies with pip and deploy using a Procfile.
    • The Procfile specifies the commands that Heroku should run to start your application.

Understanding Dynos

  • Dyno:
    • A Dyno is a lightweight process running in a containerHeroku's dyno model was an early implementation of containerization concepts that later evolved into Docker and Kubernetes orchestration patterns., not a traditional server or VM.
    • Dynos can be scaled to handle multi-process web applications using commands like heroku scale.

Managing Applications

  • Run Arbitrary Commands:

    • Heroku allows running various commands, such as database migrations or opening an interactive Python shell, using heroku run.

  • Addon Services:

    • Heroku provides managed infrastructure resources like Postgres, Redis, and KafkaThe addon ecosystem pioneered the "marketplace" model for cloud services, allowing third-party providers to integrate seamlessly with the platform through standardized APIs..
    • Addons are easy to integrate and configure within your application.

  • Application Configuration:

    • Config variables can be set and managed with heroku config:set, enabling environment-specific settings.