1. DJANGO + HEROKU
OR HOW TO BE SMART ABOUT BEING STUPID

2. THIS IS MESS
FOUNDED IN 2007
WEB, MOBILE, SOCIAL, DESKTOP, IOS, ANDROID
4 DESIGNERS + 4 DEVELOPERS
1.25 ADMINS (ME + DAN)
4 SITES A MONTH
WAY MORE IN “MAINTENANCE”
64.2% DJANGO
http://www.thisismess.com

3. I OWN MESS.
I DO NOT WORK FOR HEROKU
…and kinda hate their support guys.

4. WHAT WE NEED
…besides money and Scotch

5. SERVERS SHOULD BE
SAME(ish)
CHEAP TO DEVELOP WITH
PREDICTABLE TO SCALE WITH
EASY(ish) TO ADMINISTER
RELIABLE(ish)
FLEXIBLE(ish)
BILLABLE!

6. DEPLOYMENT MUST BE
THE SAME ACROSS AS MANY PROJECTS AS POSSIBLE
N00B-PROOF’D
DOCUMENTED
FORGIVING

7. WHAT WE’VE TRIED
…and decided sucks

8. 1
IN HOUSE

9. 1996 CALLED AND IT HATES YOU
…BUT IT’S CHEAP
…AND FLEXIBLE!
…AND PREDICTABLE!
…AND ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE

10. 1
CO-LOCATED
AT RACKSPACE

11. 2002 ISN’T MUCH HAPPIER
…BUT IT’S CHEAP
…AND FLEXIBLE!
…AND PREDICTABLE!
…AND (more) RELIABLE!
…AND ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE

12. (n)
VPS (es?)
AT RACKSPACE
USING FABRIC
AND RELEASES
AND SFTP
AND NEW RELIC
AND SENTRY
AND GIT
AND PUPPETMASTER

13. LIVING THE DREAM
…CHEAP(ish)
…AND FLEXIBLE!
…AND PREDICTABLE!
…AND RELIABLE!
…AND (sort of) STANDARDIZED!
…AND BILLABLE!

14. IF YOUR DREAM IS…
PAINFUL TO SETUP
…AND SECURE
…AND UPDATE
…AND SCALE
…AND TRAIN ON
…AND CHANGE
…AND BILL
…AND TRANSFER

15. AND BEFORE YOU ASK…
AWS IS AWESOME
…AND EC2 IS GREAT
…BUT IT SUCKS

16. SO, HEROKU.
…it sucks less

17. (h)+

18. HEROKU (and S3 and EC2 and RACKSPACE)
100% STANDARD (unless it’s non-standard)
N00B PROOF
BILLABLE
RELIABLE(ish)
FLEXIBLE(ish)
DOCUMENTED
ADMINISTRATABLE (because you don’t)
CHEAPER THAN CHEAP. FREE!

19. AND YEAH
IT’S JUST EC2
…BUT IT HIDES THE BULLSHIT
…UNTIL YOU NEED BULLSHIT

20. WHY NOT HEROKU
…everything sucks in its own way

21. IT’S KINDA, WELL…DUMB
IT’S JUST EC2
…SO IT GOES DOWN WITH EC2
…AND WITHOUT IT
…AND YOU CAN’T DO NATIVE WEBSOCKETS
…AND IT GETS PRICEY
…AND MYSQL SUCKS ON IT (so?)
…AND UWSGI HAS PROBLEMS
…AND THERE’S NO PERMANENT STORAGE
…AND IT USES MICROS ON EC2 turns out they use linux containers or something.
…AND LOGGING IS…LESS THAN AWESOME
…AND PSQL IS KINDA SLOW
…AND THEIR SUPPORT SUCKS
…AND YOU DEPLOY WITH GIT

22. MAKE IT SUCK LESS
…as best you can

23. 1. GET GOING
CREATE AN ACCOUNT https://heroku.com
DOWNLOAD THE TOOLBELT https://toolbelt.heroku.com
INSTALL BREW http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/
INSTALL GIT brew install git;
INSTALL VIRTUALENV sudo easy_install virtualenv;
INSTALL PIP sudo easy_install pip;
INSTALL PSQL http://postgresapp.com
GENERATE SSH IDENTITY http://google.com
ADD PUBLIC KEY TO HEROKU https://dashboard.heroku.com/account

24. 2. MAKE AN APP
START A PROJECT mkdir heroku-app;
cd heroku-app;
git init;
DO THE VENV virtualenv .env --distribute;
source .env/bin/activate;
INSTALL THINGS INTO THE VENV
pip install Django psycopg2 dj-database-url;
pip install boto django-storages South;
DJANGO! DJANGO!
django-admin.py startproject herokuapp .

25. 3. PREPARE
RUNSERVER python manage.py runserver;
SPEC REQS pip freeze > requirements.txt
SETUP PSQL createdb -h localhost heroku;
SETTINGS.PY
import dj_database_url
DATABASES['default'] = dj_database_url.config(default='postgres://foo@localhost/heroku')
GUNICORN (they refuse to support UWSGI correctly)
pip install gunicorn;
“web: gunicorn herokuapp.wsgi” >> Profile
.gitignore
*.pyc
.env
.DS_Store
local_settings.py

26. 4. GIT IT?
INIT & COMMIT git init;
git add .;
git commit -a -m “I love squirrels.”;

27. 5. HEROKUEN!
APPIFY heroku create;
heroku addons:add heroku-postgresql:dev
git push heroku master;
heroku run python manage.py syncdb;
heroku open;

28. IT WORKS!
…but here be dragons (and not the fluffy ones)

29. THERE IS NO DOWNTIME FIX
…99.99999999999999 UPTIME IS NOT POSSIBLE
…IT’S PROBABLY OK.

30. IT’S FREE TO DEVELOP WITH
100% FREE DURING DEV/STAGING (PRODUCTION!)
INSTANCES SPIN DOWN!
CRON A CURL http://google.com

31. STOP USING MYSQL
…IT’S AWFUL.
(heroku addons:add cleardb:ignite)
…SERIOUSLY. IT’S AWFUL.

32. WEBSOCKETS, WEBSPROCKETS
…IT’S NGINX’S FAULT
(heroku addons:add pusher:sandbox)
SOCKET.IO + TORNADO
JUST USE EC2

33. UWSGI IS WAY BETTER THAN GUNICORN
USE PYTHON 2.7.2
pip install uwsgi;
pip freeze > requirements.txt;
“python-2.7.2” >> runtime.txt
“web: uwsgi --http-socket :$PORT --wsgi-file wsgi.py” >> Profile

34. STORING FILES? USE FILE STORAGES.
S3 IS BUILT FOR THIS
pip install boto django-storages;
pip freeze > requirements.txt;
CUSTOM STORAGES (utils.py)
from storages.backends.s3boto import S3BotoStorage
class StaticRootS3BotoStorage(S3BotoStorage):
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
super(StaticRootS3BotoStorage, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
self.location = 'static'
class MediaRootS3BotoStorage(S3BotoStorage):
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
super(MediaRootS3BotoStorage, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
self.location = 'uploads'
SETTINGS.PY
#### ASSETS URLS ####
BASE_URL = '//bucket-name.s3.amazonaws.com/'
STATIC_URL = '%sstatic/' % BASE_URL
MEDIA_URL = '%suploads/' % BASE_URL
#### Amazon AWS / Storage
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID = "AKXXXXX"
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY = "HZZXXX/XXXX"
AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME = 'bucket-name'
#### File Storage
DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE = 'herokuapp.utils.MediaRootS3BotoStorage'
STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'herokuapp.StaticRootS3BotoStorage'

35. WHATEVER WEIRD CONTAINER THING THEY USE
MICROS ARE FINE
IF YOU NEED MORE PERFORMANCE heroku ps:scale web=2;

36. YOU’RE A LOG
WHY AREN’T YOU USING SENTRY? http://getsentry.com/
INSTALL RAVEN
pip install raven;
pip freeze > requirements.txt;
SETTINGS.PY
# Set your DSN value
SENTRY_DSN = 'https://XXXXX:XXXXX@app.getsentry.com/1111'
# Add raven to the list of installed apps
INSTALLED_APPS = INSTALLED_APPS + (
# ...
'raven.contrib.django.raven_compat',
)

37. PSQL? EC2!
MAKE A HIGH-MEMORY INSTANCE ON EC2 http://google.com
SET DATABASE_URL ENV
heroku config:set DATABASE_URL=postgres://xxx.aws.com:xxx/xxxx
THIS WORKS FOR ANYTHING
HEROKU’S PSQL IS ACTUALLY PRETTY GREAT

38. EMBRACE GIT DEPLOYS
USE PROCFILE FOR STUFF
“web: python manage.py collectstatic --noinput; uwsgi --http-
socket :$PORT --wsgi-file wsgi.py” >> Profile

39. THEIR SUPPORT SUCKS
BUT AT LEAST THEY HAVE SOME.

40. THANK YOU
JACK SHEDD | INTERACTIVE DIRECTOR
jshedd@thisismess.com
http://www.thisismess.com

41. QUESTIONS?
…warning, I tend to ramble.