Heroku: Up and Running

Chapter 6. Deployment

Although deploying to Heroku is a simple process, people commonly forget to consider some things when deploying applications, not only to Heroku, but anywhere else as well. Some of these items are not necessarily technology driven, and form the basis of a good checklist that you can use to ensure that your deployments are of a much more organized nature. We’ll take a look at some of these issues now. When deploying, you want to ensure that your deployments are safe and timely, but you should also have a Get Out of Jail Free card handy should it not go as planned.

Timeliness

Let’s start with one of the most basic considerations, which can alleviate a lot of pain surrounding deployments, particularly to production environments: when to deploy.

It is common for client requirements to dictate that deployments happen at the end of the day or week, and that’s something that a lot of people will happily do—however, this is probably the worst possible time to deploy. Deploying at the end of the day or week leaves you open to all sorts of issues arising, and having nobody around to help resolve them. Therefore, always plan on deploying when you’ve got a large window of availability in order to resolve any problems that might crop up. Having your application go down while you’re happily driving home for the weekend does not make for a good start to your time off.

Backing Out

Another common thing that is overlooked in the sometimes frantic rush to deploy is being able to back ...