Classic approach on GCP is rent a linux host with static monthly payment. It doesn't matter if your application is not running or users aren't consuming it, you will always pay the static monthly payment. I think this is acceptable for production environments but for development and testing not.
This does not happen on Heroku :
If an app has a free web dyno, and that dyno receives no web traffic in a 30-minute period, it will sleep. In addition to the web dyno sleeping, the worker dyno (if present) will also sleep.
Free web dynos do not consume free dyno hours while sleeping.
Question
How stop or delete app on google (gae, cloud run, cloud build, containers) if does not receive web traffic?
If it is possible using just google tools it would be great:
https://cloud.google.com/products
Idea
Developing a basic router with nodejs which works as minimal balancer. If web traffic is not detected for some apps, an instruction to google cloud platform api could stop the app or container. This would also apply to other clouds.
Any help is appreciated.
Update
I cannot find any solution yet. I will try to add that feature here https://github.com/jrichardsz/http-operator or a basic shell script to detect incoming request to a specific port like How to print incoming http request on specific port
GCP is offering several serverless products (like you mentioned) and they offer a pricing where you are only charged for the resources you use (when requests are processed).
In Cloud Run you are only billed when an instance is handling a
request using the autoscaling to know more. See their pricing as well for a better overview.
For Google App Engine the app.yaml configuration file contains several settings you can use to adjust the trade-off between performance and resource load for a specific version of your app. You
also check this link how to manage the auto scaling settings.
You can also check this Google Cloud blog for other strategies in auto scaling your applications.
To answer the Comment below:
This video can help you better understand their differences to be able to see the appropriate service for your use case.
To clarify, there's 2 variations of cloud run, the first is managed by google and the other runs on gke. As long as your classic application (api app) is stateless, you should be able to deploy it as a container and take advantage of being charged based on only the resources you use. Snippets would fall under Cloud function where it only runs functions based on triggers.
You can choose to deploy your Cloud Run app on fully managed infrastructure ("serverless", pay per use, auto-scaling up rapidly and down to 0 depending on traffic) or on a Google Kubernetes Engine cluster.
It is also possible to run Docker containers in Serverless using App Engine (Flexible). App Engine is always fully managed, with auto-scaling. App Engine Flex auto-scales gradually and down to 1. App Engine Second Generation auto-scales up rapidly and down to 0.
In your current use case I would recommend to use Cloud Run, check its limitations first before getting started. See the official documentation here and on Cloud Run How-To Guides
Related
I've visited Google Cloud full day "training" and I still don't get if there is any REAL advantage in using it for my Laravel applications.
Currently I'm using a VPS server from local hosting provider, and I can deploy a laravel application in 5 ssh commands. In few minutes it becomes live.
I've searched through options on how to do it on GoogleCloud. All of them are for minimum 2 hours of tedious reading/clicking and none offers deploying straight from a git repository, thus no continuous integration.
Please help me understand what is the advantage of paying 5 times more and configuring 20 times longer in GoogleCloud versus VPS?
Thx
It all depends on what you try to achieve by deploying your Laravel app. If you expect little traffic and of a constant nature, you local hosting provider is fine. Do you expect your app to scale for millions of requests per second? Would you value resilience? In this case, you are better off doing a little extra effort and deploying in the cloud. You may gather more detail from the "Building Scalable and Resilient Web Applications on Google Cloud Platform" online document.
I need monitor apps deployed to Heroku by Prometheus monitoring system.
Problem is that if you have more dynos app, you need to know all IP address of your dynost to be able to pull metrics from all dynos.
For K8s or AWS we are able to get full list of PODs/instances, So you are able to do this.
So question is, do you know, how to get IPs of all dynos from Heroku?
I'm considering exposing the $DYNO environment variable as a label to all metrics so Prometheus can have a consistent view on which dyno it's scraping. Given a short enough scraping interval, all dynos should be able to scraped within reasonable time.
Pushgateway is not a recommended way of monitoring long-standing services.
So question is, do you know, how to get IPs of all dynos from Heroku?
This is not possible on the Heroku platform. The application dynos sit behind a load balancer, you do not have direct access to them.
I need monitor apps deployed to Heroku by Prometheus monitoring system.
Perhaps this could be split into two Prometheus jobs.
Monitor the application directly (at it's load-balanced *.herokuapp.com/metrics endpoint)
and use an exporter that gathers the dynos metrics via push somehow
Consider making use of a Heroku log drain to an exporter, converting the logs into a metrics endpoint.
There is also a private API available on Heroku application stats, not the best idea, but it might work well to gather the basic application stats. Have a look at the network requests in the Heroku dashboard to see how that works.
This would have some similarities with using a pushgateway, as described at https://prometheus.io/docs/practices/pushing/.
Is it possible to add application insights for web api that's hosted on the on-premise version of service fabric?
So far I have tried to add the application insights to my project and wondering where to send for monitoring. It was easy when app is also on cloud.
I believe there is no on-premise application insights service, so even if the web api is hosted on-premise over service fabric; one must use cloud version application insights service, is that correct? In that case can anyone let me know how to setup?
App Insights is only hosted in Azure. If you're looking for an on-premise solution, you're best off looking at using something like the ELK stack (Elastic Search, Logstash and Kabana).
Nonetheless, even though your cluster is hosted on-premise, using Asure App Insights is still very much a valid scenario (assuming your IT organisation is fine with it).
Assuming you're fine with Application Insights, I strongly recommend you have a look at App Insights Service Fabric. It works great for:
Sending error and exception info
Populating the application map with all your services and their dependencies (including database)
Reporting on app performance metrics, as well as,
Tracing service call dependencies end-to-end,
Integrating with native as well as non-native SF applications
One thing however that the above won't solve is providing overall cluster health information - e.g. when/how often nodes go up/down, how much CPU/Memory and disk IO is consumed on individual nodes. For this you could try MS EventFlow or a custom windows service
There is no "on premise" application insights, but as long as your on premise service has access to send outbound data, you can use application insights on your site. You won't be able to use some features, like webtests, because application insights wont be able to make calls into your site.
Setup is the same as always, create an application insights resource in azure, and either configure it in visual studio, or manually set the instrumentation key in your applicationinsights.config (or via code) in your app.
If you need to configure outbound firewall rules or anything to let AI send data, that information is all here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/application-insights/app-insights-ip-addresses
I have a project and I'm planning to start the web app as an Azure Web Site and then migrate it to an Azure Cloud Service (also called Hosted Service) if it is needed as a scale strategy.
The decision is because I read that Azure Web Sites are more simple and fast to develop with almost no Azure-specific configurations or code. So starting fast and simple is a good starting point for the project.
But, is that a good starting point for you?
Is migrating an Azure Web Site to an Azure Cloud Service the same as you were migrating a normal ASP.NET Website to an Azure Cloud Service?
Would you start with an Azure Cloud Service right from the beginning? If yes, why?
Thanks for your time.
There are benefits to both deployment models, it will eventually come down to what you are trying to achieve and ultimately the success of your application.
Below I've outlined the Pros and Cons of each of the models to ensure that you're making the right choice for your applications goals.
Windows Azure Web Sites
You have properly identified that Windows Azure Web Sites is a great starting point for an application, however you could also consider that Web Sites does offer enough scalability for many solutions.
Pros
10 Free sites during preview [Free for 12 months]
Easy Deployment (use Git, TFS, Web Deploy or FTP)
Quick Scalability (You can move to your own dedicated cluster [aka reserved standard])
Simple Development (Supports Classic ASP, ASP.NET, Node.js, Python & PHP)
Persistent Environment (most people are used to this)
Cons
No SSL Support on Custom Domains
in Preview (currently no SLA)
Windows Azure Cloud Services
Cloud Services (formerly known as Hosted Services) is definitely the vision for the future of Web Applications. It is built with resiliency in mind to keep the cost of applications affordable by scaling to meet demand, and dial back capacity when your traffic slows.
Pros
Increased control over the cost of your application (if architected correctly)
Flexibility (You have full control over the environment)
SSL Support
Language Agnostic
Web Server Agnostic (although IIS is available by default)
Auto Management of Servers
Cons
Architecture should be carefully considered
Deployment time is slower (Slows development cycle)
Things to consider for Portability
The items above might have given you enough to plan the immediate future of the application and it is very likely that you might want to consider Cloud Services in the future (it fits a number of application scenarios better in the long run).
Here is a list of things to help portability between Web Sites to Cloud Services:
Start thinking Stateless
Windows Azure Web Sites is nice as it is a persistent environment, which means you are able to store things like session state and assets to the disk.
Although this is a good feature, it's best to start planning towards a stateless application, if your end goal is to be in Cloud Services. Here are a few things you can do to start thinking stateless:
Don't rely on Session State
If you need it, come up with a strategy to make it scale (Caching Service, SQL, or Storage)
Use the Storage Service
Assets such as Static HTML, css, javascript and images are better placed in Storage
Avoids additional bandwidth on your Web Site (potentially stay shared longer for lower cost)
Can be CDN Enabled, provides a better experience for International markets
Easier to update web assets when application is migrated to Cloud Services
Storing User content
If your application already stores to the Storage Service, there is one less code modification in the future when moving to cloud services.
Make it easy to discover patterns in your Data
The benefit of Cloud Services is it enables you to reduce cost by only scaling what needs scaled. Starting the process of identifying your scale units i.e. How you partition your database or Tables in Storage.
I read all post and all of them are very helpful.
In addition to all post , I found an info on msdn : Windows Azure Websites, Cloud Services, and VMs: When to use which?
With Windows Azure Websites you can:
Build highly scalable web sites on Windows Azure.
Quickly and easily deploy sites to a highly scalable cloud environment that allows you to start small and scale as needed.
Use the languages and open source applications of your choice then deploy with FTP, Git or TFS, and easily integrate Windows Azure services like SQL Database, Caching, CDN and Storage.
With Cloud Services you can:
Build or extend your enterprise applications on Windows Azure.
Create highly-available, scalable applications and services using a rich PaaS environment. Support advanced multi-tier scenarios, automated deployments and elastic scale. Deliver great SaaS solutions to customers anywhere around the world.
And also there is summarizes the option on msdn :
And comparing some features Web Sites and Cloud Services on msdn:
Azure is a great place to have your app, but there are some considerations you need to know before start migrating it.
Azure Websites and Hosted Services are really trivial to deploy. With
Visual studio you generate the package and simply upload it. Then you
have a Development environment to check it. If it's ok for you, swap
ips. If it's not ok for you, upgrade again.
Your instances have some properties that could be annoying. For
example, you cannot be sure about your IP. Then if your app works
with some provider using IP restriction, you will need to figure out
how to proceed.
More considerations. Your "server" could be reimaged at any moment.
If you store something on the local disc, that file could go away at any moment.
Azure works very nice if you have at least 2 instances or more for
each website. Maybe your app is not prepared for that. The first step
will be managing the sessions with the appFabric. Is really
easy, just a change on your web config. Be careful because this
session state doesn't work exactly as the "old one". You cannot store
non-serializable objects (should be easy to adapt) or a very large objects (more than 8MB).
If you are going to develop something from zero, I suggest you to start into azure from the beginning. The reason is simple: it's really cheap to start and you will not pay serious money until the app have lot's of visits. It's also very cheap to setup a SQLAzure and a storage account. One you have all in place, it's easy to add more instances or scale up.
Example:
Imagine you have an idea and you wish to show up to some possible investors.
You start setting up a little SQLAzure database (1GB ), $9,99 monthly.
Then you build a site and you put 2 extra small instances, $18,72 monthly.
Let's say you need 100 GB of space (images, backups, ...), $12,50 monthly.
At his point, you have all in place to start your business paying less than $50 monthly.
If you site have exit and the visits starts to come, you change your instances for small instances (it's really dangerous to have production environment with extra small instances, because do not have cpu reservation). Then you change the extra small cost ($18,71) up to $57,60. Maybe you need more space to that SQL Azure? etc...
prices calculated from here: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/?scenario=web .
Those are few tips, there is a lot more. My advice is to start a trial account and play with it.
Final advice: Its very easy to solve everything just purchasing more resources. Sometimes you need to refactor and optimize your code. If you simply add more resources each time you have a problem, you could end with a huge bill and a very messy code.
Hope it helps!
Another advantage of Windows Azure Cloud Services over Web Sites is that a cloud service can be added to an Azure Virtual Network. This can give it access to on-premises resources like databases. So if your requirements are such that you need the scalability offered by Azure but need to keep your data on-premises due to security restrictions, cloud services is a better choice.
Azure web sites cannot be part of an Azure virtual network. To access on-premises resources mechanisms such as Azure Service Bus Relay must be configured.
We've had our web site running on PHP on some hosting and at some point decided to move it to Azure (where sits main part of our service). We've started with Azure Web Sites which was great from development point of view (mainly integration with git). But after about a week of testing (when we've decided to actually move the production web site) we've found that currently
No SSL for custom domains
Custom domains are available only for reserved instances (no shared infrastructure)
SLA
So we moved to Hosted Service. The main problem for us was lack of ability of simple deployment (need to build package and upload whole package of the web site), and found solution was to use dropbox - as a startup task for role, we're installing dropbox service on the machine, which takes all the web site from dropbox, which in turn have SVN checked out folder, so site updates became very easy.
I just started learning Ruby on rails and I was wondering what Heroku really is? I know that its a cloud that helps us to avoid using servers? When do we actually use it?
Heroku is a cloud platform as a service. That means you do not have to worry about infrastructure; you just focus on your application.
In addition to what Jonny said, there are a few features of Heroku:
Instant Deployment with Git push - build of your application is performed by Heroku using your build scripts
Plenty of Add-on resources (applications, databases etc.)
Processes scaling - independent scaling for each component of your app without affecting functionality and performance
Isolation - each process (aka dyno) is completely isolated from each other
Full Logging and Visibility - easy access to all logging output from every component of your app and each process (dyno)
Heroku provides very well written tutorial which allows you to start in minutes. Also they provide first 750 computation hours free of charge which means you can have one processes (aka Dyno) at no cost. Also performance is very good e.g. simple web application written in node.js can handle around 60 - 70 requests per second.
Heroku competitors are:
OpenShift by Red Hat
Windows Azure
Amazon Web Services
Google App Engine
VMware
HP Cloud Services
Force.com
It's a cloud-based, scalable server solution that allows you to easily manage the deployment of your Rails (or other) applications provided you subscribe to a number of conventions (e.g. Postgres as the database, no writing to the filesystem).
Thus you can easily scale as your application grows by bettering your database and increasing the number of dynos (Rails instances) and workers.
It doesn't help you avoid using servers, you will need some understanding of server management to effectively debug problems with your platform/app combination. However, while it is comparatively expensive (i.e. per instance when compared to renting a slice on Slicehost or something), there is a free account and it's a rough trade off between whether it's more cost effective to pay someone to build your own solution or take the extra expense.
Heroku Basically provides with webspace to upload your app
If you are uploading a Rails app then you can follow this tutorial
https://github.com/mrkushjain/herokuapp
As I see it, it is a scalable administrated web hosting service, ready to grow in any sense so you don't have to worry about it.
It's not useful for a normal PHP web application, because there are plenty of web hosting services with ftp over there for a simple web without scalability needs, but if you need something bigger Heroku or something similar is what you need.
It is exposed as a service via a command line tool so you can write scripts to automate your deployments. Anyway it is pretty similar to other web hosting services with Git enabled, but Heroku makes it simpler.
That's its thing, to make the administration stuff simpler to you, so it saves you time. But I'm not sure, as I'm just starting with it!
A nice introduction of how it works in the official documentation is:
https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/how-heroku-works
Per DZone: https://dzone.com/articles/heroku-or-amazon-web-services-which-is-best-for-your-startup
Heroku is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) product based on AWS, and is vastly different from Elastic Compute Cloud. It’s very important to differentiate ‘Infrastructure as a Service’ and ‘Platform as a Service’ solutions as we consider deploying and supporting our application using these two solutions.
Heroku is way simpler to use than AWS Elastic Compute Cloud. Perhaps it’s even too simple. But there’s a good reason for this simplicity. The Heroku platform equips us with a ready runtime environment and application servers. Plus, we benefit from seamless integration with various development instruments, a pre-installed operating system, and redundant servers.
Therefore, with Heroku, we don’t need to think about infrastructure management, unlike with AWS EC2. We only need to choose a subscription plan and change our plan when necessary.
That article does a good job explaining the differences between Heroku and AWS but it looks like you can choose other iaas (infrastructure) providers other than AWS. So ultimately Heroku seems to just simplify the process of using a cloud provider but at a cost.