Heroku

Web applications are primarily comprised of data, services, and the User Interface (UI). The UI is comprised of HTML, CSS, images, and probably JavaScript. In the traditional web architecture all of the UI assets are static files except the HTML which is dynamically generated by the server. In the modern web architecture the entire UI is static files that consume RESTful / JSON services. The static files for the UI must be downloaded to the client so the less time it takes for them to be downloaded, the better the overall performance of the application.

Recently I co-presented a webinar about how to integrate Java Spring Apps on Heroku with the Force.com / Salesforce.com REST APIs. Check out the recording:

I’ve also created an in-depth walk through of the code example and step-by-step instructions for setting up and deploying the example Java Spring app on Heroku. Check it out and let me know how it goes.

Heroku now has an Eclipse Plugin that makes it super easy to deploy and manage Java apps on the Cloud! Here is a screencast that will show you how to get started with the Heroku Eclipse Plugin:

To learn more check out the Heroku Eclipse Integration site. Give it a whirl and let me know how it goes!

In my spare time I help out with a little app called [Greg’s Toolkit][1] that was built before I knew about Heroku. The app runs on EC2 and deploying new versions of the app is pretty tedious. Here is the deployment instructions copied directly from the project’s wiki:

./gradlew war
scp  ./gft_server/build/libs/gft_server.war api.gregstoolkit.com:
ssh api.gregstoolkit.com
cd /opt/apache-tomcat-7.0.21
sudo -u www-data bin/shutdown.sh
cd webapps/ROOT
sudo rm -r *
sudo -u www-data jar -xvf ~/gft_server.war
sudo -u www-data sed -i 's/dev/prod/' WEB-INF/web.xml
cd ../..
sudo -u www-data bin/startup.sh

That certainly isn’t as cumbersome as some deployment methods but it is time consuming, error-prone, and causes downtime.

I’ve been working on a Play 2 application that I’ll be using for the Grails vs Play Smackdown at ÜberConf next week. The app is running in production on Heroku but since I don’t have an admin UI yet, I needed a quick and easy way to create a new entity. I could have gone straight to the database but thought it would be better to run Play 2’s Scala Console on Heroku and then just run some arbitrary Scala code. The Scala Console in Play 2 is really just the Scala REPL in SBT but it allows you to interact with a Play application.

Tomorrow, May 30th, I will be co-hosting a webinar about Social Enterprise Java Apps on Heroku. The webinar will be at both 2:00 p.m. GMT and 10:00 a.m. PDT. Register at: http://www.developerforce.com/events/webinars/2012-05-30/registration.php?d=70130000000sW7g

Here is the description:

In this webinar you will learn how to build Social Enterprise applications using Salesforce.com, Heroku, and Java. Through live coding and demonstrations you will learn how to instantly deploy and scale Java apps on the cloud with Heroku. You will also learn how to integrate those applications with Salesforce.com and Force.com through REST.

Last week I hosted a webinar about running Java apps on Heroku that use the Spring Framework and the [Neo4j graph database][1]. Here is the recording of that webinar:

In the webinar I began by deploying a copy of the Spring MVC + Hibernate template app from [heroku.com/java][2] on Heroku. Then I made a few modifications to the app to switch the persistence from Hibernate / JPA to Neo4j. You can get the [full source code on GitHub][3].

Over the next couple weeks I’ll be doing two Java User Group presentations, a Flash Platform User Group presentation and one Webinar. Hope to see you at one of these events:

• Wednesday May 9 - Denver Java User Group:

  Running Java, Play! and Scala Apps in the Cloud

This week I’ll be doing two presentation about Heroku:

• Tuesday May 1 - 5:30 PM at the Denver Open Source Users Group:
  Heroku Cloud Computing Platform

Hope to see you there!

This week I will be presenting about Running Java, Scala, and Play apps on Heroku at the Houston JUG and at No Fluff Just Stuff in Reston, VA:

• Houston JUG - Wednesday April 25 at 6:30pm
  Running Java and Play! Apps on the Cloud

Hope to see you there!