

A Serious Flaw of PaaS - bozho
http://techblog.bozho.net/?p=1207

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RealityEngineer
In addition to the problem of old versions and lack of updates: new versions
can cause problems as well. The claimed utility of PAAS is in part it doesn’t
require you to upgrade software since they handle that. The problem is of
course that sometimes new versions either have new bugs that break your
software or may have some incompatible change that breaks your software. So if
you do have a working version on a PAAS, they might potentially break it. With
your own environment you can test your software with new versions before
upgrading.

Ideally a PAAS should provide an automated framework to run any tests you have
to see whether to run you in an upgraded environment, otherwise run you on a
legacy environment until you are ready to switch. They’d then need to give you
access to test in the new environment separately. It isn’t clear how many
different legacy environments PAAS vendors would want to keep running.

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bslatkin
The whole point of PaaS is to be a managed environment that is stable and
requires zero maintenance for you, the developer. That's often incompatible
with the cutting edge. That's okay. The tradeoff is worth it if you're
actually running a real service.

e.g.,
[https://twitter.com/kamens/status/374321462938578944](https://twitter.com/kamens/status/374321462938578944)

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noname123
Why not just use AWS community images, pick your stack and apt-get install all
of the stuff you need customized.

