
Why Stack Exchange Data Explorer is moving off the Windows Azure platform - rayvega
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/12/re-launching-stack-exchange-data-explorer/
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jeffb
stackoverflow said: "There’s also the 30 minute deploy cycle." ... "It is
important to note that these issues are by no means specific to Azure; similar
teething issues affect other Platform-As-A-Service providers such as Google
App Engine and Heroku"

Deployment on Heroku takes seconds in my experience. Certainly not 30 minutes!

Also, db backups on Heroku are easy. And if you don't want to use Heroku's
built-in PostgreSQL db, it's easy to use Amazon's RDS instead.

It seems strange to imply that Heroku currently has the same problems they
attribute to Azure.

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patio11
I think the claim is that PAAS has tradeoffs which you make versus "as simple
as dedicated" host-it-yerself, which is true in my experience.

Heroku is wonderful, don't get me wrong, but it is _not_ all "I don't know
anything about sysadminning and now I don't have too, _git push origin deploy_
OK now I can go back to making rounded corners and drop shadows" peaches and
cream. I have a client product on it. Half of the gems/plugins that I used
required me to either hack the source or do some deep spelunking to find out
why they aren't working. For example, I used TinyMCE editor for that nice
Wordpress-esque WYSIWYG feel. TinyMCE is written in Javascript, and the
configurations for the plugin causes the Javascript to be written out on first
access. Heroku is not quite so happy when you try to write things to the hard
drive, and died hard on that.

This was for a site which is pretty darn pedestrian as far as Rails projects
go.

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steveklabnik
I have always felt that Heroku's constraints are good for you, though. Yeah,
it might be mildly annoying at times, but you really _should_ be putting
static content on a CDN, and not have long-running processes, etc.

I also have yet to have a gem blow up in my face, though.

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latch
Wow, kudos to the SO team for making the right choice for them. Too many
companies/individuals fall for this type of aggressive sales pitch and end up
paying for it in the long run.

Kinda a blow for Azure...can't give it away..

~~~
chollida1
> Kinda a blow for Azure...can't give it away..

To be fair, the author did say this:

>It is important to note that these issues are by no means specific to Azure;
similar teething issues affect other Platform-As-A-Service providers such as
Google App Engine and Heroku. When you are using a PAAS you are giving up a
lot of control to the service provider. The service provider chooses which
applications you can run and imposes a series of restrictions.

So it's a "blow" to Google App Engine and Heroku as well.

~~~
latch
Going into details about the problems a platform has, and then sweeping
everyone else along is a bit weak. I've used Heroku enough (not too much
though), to know that it doesn't suffer from most (any?) of the listed issues.

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silverlight
I thought it was telling that they linked to an article where someone
discusses the shortcomings of App Engine but just linked to the main Heroku
site.

Sweeping everyone else under the same rug (or attempting to) just feels like a
"we're complaining about your Azure platform's shortcomings, but hey, we can
still be friends, see, we'll try to throw everyone else under the bus, too".

~~~
pronoiac
The linked critique of App Engine dates from 2008 - many of the complaints are
simply outdated.

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erikpukinskis
My question: why was Stack Exchange

