Launching Ruby on Rails projects: A checklist

Launching Ruby on Rails Applications
A CHECKLIST

Friday, July 24, 2009

A CHECKLIST

Thanks Mark!


A CHECKLIST

From our team
at Planet Argon, direct to you


A CHECKLIST

Best Practices
for prepping your launch pad



HOSTING



SEARCH ENGINES
HOSTING



DATA HARVESTING
SEARCH ENGINES
HOSTING



FEEDBACK
DATA HARVESTING
SEARCH ENGINES
HOSTING



EXCEPTIONS
FEEDBACK
DATA HARVESTING
SEARCH ENGINES
HOSTING



PERFORMANCE
EXCEPTIONS
FEEDBACK
DATA HARVESTING
SEARCH ENGINES
HOSTING



CLIENTS
PERFORMANCE
EXCEPTIONS
FEEDBACK
DATA HARVESTING
SEARCH ENGINES
HOSTING



CLIENTS
PERFORMANCE
EXCEPTIONS
FEEDBACK
DATA HARVESTING
SEARCH ENGINES
HOSTING

Have your cake and eat it too!

CHECK
YOUR LIST

Launching Ruby on Rails
Applications
Checklist

Watch for it on my blog: http://robbyonrails.com

1200+ respondents

More information at http://rails-hosting.com

Before we begin...


Working on your first
Rails project?


Have you launched
at least one Rails app?


Have you launched
2-5 Rails apps?


Have you launched
2-5 Rails apps?
more than 5?


SURVEY
SAYS...

Q. How many
Ruby on Rails None
applications 4% 1
10%
have you
5+
deployed? 38%

1-5
47%


Don’t wait until the last minute!


lots of topics
project management
interaction design
development
hosting tracking errors
visual design planning
testing code
user feedback
public relations browser testing
client management marketing
quality assurance search engine optimization
data harvesting teamwork
brainstorming
etc.

Hosting


Automate Deployments

CHECK
YOUR LIST

Create reusable
tasks to release
new versions of the
application.


SURVEY
SAYS...

Q. Do you use an
automated
deployment No
tool?
23%

Yes
77%


That means nearly
one in four are still...


That means nearly
Manually uploading source
code via FTP or SFTP


That means nearly

SSHing into the server


That means nearly


Manually running migrations


That means nearly



Manually restarting their
application

That means nearly
Don’t Repeat Yourself!



Manually restarting their
application

Minimize Human
Error


Knowledgeable Team


Make time to test deployments

Know how to
ROLLBACK
when necessary


Testing gives your team confidence!


Hire a specialist
who knows their stuff


CHECK
YOUR LIST

Make sure your team
knows how to test,
deploy & rollback
when necessary.


Setup a Staging Environment

Practice
in your production environment


Brand new Rails App
Sign contract
Setup git repository
Generate new Rails app

Deploy to staging!


TIP
FROM
ROBBY

Keep your application
deployable
at all times!
(Not just releasable)


Staging site to the rescue!

Test the water...


... before diving in!

Keep out the Peeping Toms

HTTP Basic Authentication


Test your scheduled tasks...
in a real hosting environment

Create a deployment guide

TIP
FROM
ROBBY

Put conﬁguration
ﬁles in Git


TIP
FROM
ROBBY

Have a backup strategy!


CHECK
YOUR LIST

Set up a staging
environment as soon as
the project is started.


Monitoring Your App

SURVEY
SAYS...

Q. Do you use
monit or god
for server side
Monit
monitoring? 26%

No
57% God
13%

Other
4%


Use Server Monitoring Tools
for...
Mongrel

memcached

backgroundDrb
delayed_job


CHECK
YOUR LIST

Setup monit or god.


“Have you tried turning it off
and on again?”


SURVEY
SAYS...

Q. Do you use any
uptime
monitoring Nagios
tools in 18%

production? Pingdom

No 10%

60% Other
12%


Use Client Side Monitoring Tools

do it yourself?


EXTRA
CREDIT!


EXTRA
CREDIT!

Use Cucumber
to test in
production


Be cool & confident...
use best practices

!Automate your deployments
!Setup a staging environment
!Server-side monitoring
!Client-side monitoring


Search Engines


<h1>Write Good Markup</h1>

<ul>
<li>Page Titles</li>
<li>Permalinks</li>
<li>Important Elements</li>
</ul>

<p>Hire a UI guru!</p>


Page titles are used in search results


URLs are part of the UI

Permalinks?


Use markup to create structure

Search bots like structure.

<h1>Get in Touch</h1>...
<h2>Visit Us</h2>...


I see possible
issues with AJAX
and Javascript

BOOM!

Search engines may not be able
to access some content

Degrade Gracefully


Create an XML Sitemap


Automate the generation
of your sitemap


Notify these guys
when you have an updated sitemap


Sign up for...
Google Webmaster Tools


Data Harvesting
& Analytics


CHECK
YOUR LIST

Identify your Key
Performance Indicators
(KPIs)


What are some
example KPIs?


Example KPIs

• Page views (per day / per visit)


Example KPIs

• Newsletter subscriptions


Example KPIs

• Successful orders


Example KPIs

• Abandoned shopping carts


Example KPIs

• Abandoned shopping carts
• Homepage bounce rate


Collect & Segment


Sign up for Google Analytics
and make sure your Clients have access


Setup your primary
conversion goals

Usage testing
not the same as Usability testing


CrazyEgg
Heatmaps and usage patterns

Crazyegg


Clicktale
Screencasts of real visitors on your site

Clicktale


Look for patterns


Get rid of the guesswork


Test your ideas


Data Feedback
User
Data

Data Harvesting

Who is responsible for
responding to
feedback?


User Voice
Customers vote on ideas


Tender
Create a support center


zendesk
Support tool for small companies


GetSatisfaction
Make it easy for your users to send you feedback


Exceptions


SURVEY
SAYS...

Q. Do you catch and
track Application
Exceptions in
production? No
31%
Yes
69%


exception_notification

http://github.com/rails/exception_notiﬁcation/tree/master

hoptoad


Exceptional


Default
404

Default
500

Helpful 404 Page


Helpful 500 Page


Performance


Page load is king


YSlow


Google Page Speed


Benchmark against staging


SURVEY
SAYS...

Q. Do you use any
performance
monitoring tools
in production?
Yes
36%

No
64%


Scout


FiveRuns


New Relic


Is your source code efficient?


Are your database queries efficient?

are the database
queries efﬁcient?


Are your database queries efficient?
missing indexes?

are the database
queries efﬁcient?


What are your slowest
controller actions?


What are your slowest
controller actions?
negatively impacting our KPIs?


TIP
FROM
ROBBY

Use data to drive your
optimization efforts


Stop guessing!


Clients Holding
their hands


Be a coach

TIP
FROM
ROBBY

Make sure you are
managing your client’s
manage expectations
expectations


Launch is the starting line

On-going maintenance is
a necessity


Budget for a reliable
hosting solution


Be ready on Launch Day


Celebrate!

Share some champagne...

Celebrate!

...or Scotch. ;-)

Have a plan ready for
the road ahead


Analyze your KPIs
Keep up on user feedback
Push out bug ﬁxes early and often


Summary

Let’s do a quick review


CHECK
YOUR LIST

Don’t postpone
preparation until
the end


CHECK
YOUR LIST

Keep your
application
deployable at all
times


CHECK
YOUR LIST

Pace yourself


CHECK
YOUR LIST

Prepare for the
unexpected


CHECK
YOUR LIST

Solve the right
problems


CHECK
YOUR LIST

Have fun!
Have Fun.


Thank you


Where’s Robby?

• blog: http://robbyonrails.com
• company: http://planetargon.com
• twitter: @robbyrussell
• email: robby@planetargon.com


PLANET ARGON
DESIGN // DEVELOPMENT // DEPLOYMENT

More information at http://planetargon.com

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