
Deploying 15 MB Node.js VMs Effortlessly to AWS - axelfontaine
https://boxfuse.com/blog/nodejs-aws
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hathym
19 MB with docker+alpine [https://hub.docker.com/r/dahlb/alpine-
node/tags/](https://hub.docker.com/r/dahlb/alpine-node/tags/)

Update: 6.7MB when compressed [https://github.com/mhart/alpine-
node](https://github.com/mhart/alpine-node)

~~~
axelfontaine
And a base AMI when running on AWS.

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pmontra
If I understand it right the magic sauce of Boxfuse is the minimization of the
app, stripping it down from all the unneeded dependencies. Is this correct or
are there other things that are difficult to replicate? Did anybody here
already used it with Java?

Thinking about AWS Lambda, which is billed per time and per RAM, minimizing an
application sounds good because less modules to load mean less RAM and less
money.

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axelfontaine
Boxfuse founder and CEO here.

Your app is not modified. What is missing here is all the unnecessary baggage
that comes with general purpose operating systems.

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marklyon
Any thought of supporting Django? Deployment is one of the more off-putting
things there; looks like this approach could greatly simplify things.

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headconnect
So, essentially microkernel for node? If so, any thoughts on joyents public
rant about microkernels not being suitable for production?

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bcantrill
As the ranter in question, a very important correction: my concerns were about
_unikernels_ , not _microkernels_. That these two are conflated is tragic (and
ironic) because they actually live on opposite ends of a belief spectrum:
unikernels believe that everything should be in the kernel for performance
reasons; microkernels believe that essentially nothing should in the kernel
for robustness reasons. Speaking personally, I am a microkernel believer (I
worked at QNX back in the day and can tell you that microkernels are in
production all around you and in safety-critical capacities) -- but I am
(obviously) a unikernel skeptic.

