Learn what Heroku is about, where it can be a good fit, and how much it costs compared to using Amazon EC2.

1. Getting Started
with Heroku

2. Platform-as-a-Service
“Provision App Environments, Not Servers”

3. Common Use Cases
• Launching and scaling apps without IT/server scripting
• Deploying MVPs
• Situational/Internal Apps
• Mobile API/Backend

4. How It Works
1. Provision Application w/ Heroku
2. Heroku creates a hosted Git Repository
3. Provision Services and Options (“Add-ons”)
4. Configure your application using ENV vars
5. Push to your application’s Git repository to Heroku

6. Dynos
• Dyno == 1 Process (one free Dyno per app per month)
• Support Ruby, Java/JVM, Node.js, Python, others
• Additional Dynos: $0.05/hour == $36/month
• Each process can run up to ~15 threads
• Thin with threadsafe Rails: 1 process/15 threads
• Unicorn: 3 processes/45 threads
• Limited by soft memory cap of 512MB per process

7. Database
• PostgreSQL 9.1
• Shared – 5GB (free) or 20GB ($15/month)
• Production - $50 to $6400/month based on storage/CPU/Cache
• 1 TB max

8. Add-ons
• Heroku Add-ons (CNAME, SSL, pg backup, etc)
• Third-party (New Relic, MongoHQ, Memcached, etc)
• Config and Customization often free or low cost
• Some third party are free, most have tiered pricing
$ heroku addons:add ssl:endpoint

9. The Procfile
$APP_ROOT/Procfile:
web: bundle exec rails server -p $PORT
worker: bundle exec rake resque:work QUEUE=*
urgentworker: bundle exec rake resque:work QUEUE=urgent

10. Scaling Processes
$ heroku scale worker=1
scaling processes... done

11. Viewing Processes
$ heroku ps
Process State Command
----------- ----------- -----------------------------
web.1 up for 6s bundle exec rails server
worker.1 up for 5s bundle exec rake resque:work

12. Viewing Logs
$ heroku logs --tail
2012-07-09 19:04:48 heroku[router] GET / dyno=web.1
2012-07-09 19:04:48 app[web.1] 66.75.123.123 - -

13. Cost Analysis:
Production Rails App
• Rails 3.2
• Background workers
• PostgreSQL Relational DB
• MongoDB Document-Oriented DB

14. Rails App
• 3 processes (1 free dyno + 2 dynos)
• 2 worker processes (+2 dynos)
• Total cost for dynos: 4 * $36 = $144/month

15. App Add-ons
• Custom Domain (now default) - FREE
• New Relic Standard – FREE
• PostgreSQL Backups – FREE
• PostgreSQL w/ 400MB Cache - $50/month
• SSL Endpoint - $20/month
• Memcache 100MB - $20/month
• MongoHQ Small - $15/month
• Total cost w/ dynos: $249/month
• First year cost: $2988

16. AWS Comparison
On Demand Pricing (us-west):
• EC2 Small x 2 (Rails/Memcache) = $0.18/hour = $130/month
• EC2 Small x 2 (Mongo+PostgreSQL) = $0.18/hour =
$130/month
• EC2 + ELB Bandwidth = ~$20.00/month
• Total cost: $280/month + server scripting/setup cost
• First year cost: $3660

17. AWS Comparison (con’t)
Reserved Pricing (us-west) 1 year term:
• EC2 Small x 2 (Rails/Memcache) = $0.05/hour = $36/month
• One-time setup $195 x 2
• EC2 Small x 2 (Mongo+PostgreSQL) = $0.05/hour = $36/month
• One-time setup $195 x 2
• EC2 + ELB Bandwidth = ~$20.00/month
• Total cost: $780 setup + $92/month + server scripting/setup cost
• First year cost: $1884

18. AWS Comparison (con’t)
Reserved Pricing (us-west) 1 year term + 3rd party DB mgmt:
• EC2 Small x 2 (Rails/Memcache) = $0.05/hour = $36/month
• One-time setup $195 x 2
• MongoHQ = $49/month
• Heroku PostgreSQL = $50/month
• EC2 + ELB Bandwidth = ~$20.00/month
• Total cost: $780 setup + $155/month + server scripting/setup
cost
• First year cost: $2640

19. Thank you
James Higginbotham
james@launchany.com
@launchany