Aptible vs. CloudFoundry

Would use this product from proof of concept all the way to production at scale. Aptible Deploy will allow users to iterate more quickly on their applications or software product deployments, this will enable faster product creation, and does outsource and automate significant DevOps expertise. For a small organization or startup, this will drive a huge advantage towards being product or customer-focused. For a large organization, this could outsource a lot of resource allocation for just a simple web application that needs to have tight security requirements that are auditable.

It's well suited if:

• The organization has large number of applications that needs to be deployed frequently.
• The organization is tied to the DevOps mindset.
• The organization has programs in different languages.
• The applications does not need EJB's support that servers like web logic provide.

It's less suited if:

• The applications needs security configuration within the same CloudFoundry instance.
• The organization, for whatever reason does not want developers to manage the instances.

Incentivized

• Easy provisioning of your infrastructure
• Achieving SOC 2 and HIPAA compliance can be done with just a few clicks
• Great documentation
• Built in compliance dashboard

• Support for Orgs and Spaces that allow for managing users and deployables within a large organization.
• Easy deployment, deploying code is as simple as executing single line from CLI, thanks to build-packs.
• Solid and rich CLI, that allows for various operations on the instance.
• Isolated Virtual Machines called Droplets, that provide clean run time environment for the code. This used to be a problem with Weblogic and other application servers, where multiple applications are run on the same cluster and they share resources.
• SSH capability for the droplet (isolated VM's are called droplets), that allows for real time viewing of the App code while the application is running.
• Support for multiple languages, thanks to build-packs.
• Support for horizontal scaling, scaling an instance horizontally is a breeze.
• Support for configuring environment variable using the service bindings.
• Supports memory and disk space limit allocation for individual applications.
• Supports API's as well as workers (processes without endpoints)
• Supports blue-green deployment with minimal down time

Incentivized

• Implement password-less CLI Auth flow
• Implement Single button full application tear down
• Provide demo application code for a wider array of technologies, frameworks
• Provide ability to deploy into existing network constraints of large organization

• Does not support stateful containers and that would be a nice to have.
• Supports showing logs, but does not persist the logs anywhere. This makes relying on Cloud Foundry's logs very unreliable. The logs have to be persisted using other third party tools like Elk and Kibana.

Incentivized

From my experience with the Virtual Private Cloud, Aptible Deploy is easier to work with from both a visual and command standpoint. There is much better documentation, and the product is more intuitive. Log setup is also easier for LogDNA and NewRelic integrations. I do believe the IBM Cloud toolchain service still allows for more customizability, but that comes at the cost of simplicity and ease of use. It is also a significant positive for Aptible Deploy that compliance is constantly monitored, with clearly included guidelines on how to meet the respective protocols.

Incentivized

While Docker shines in providing support for volumes and stateful instances, Cloud foundry shines in providing support for deploying stateless services. Heroku shines in integrating with Git and using commits to git as hooks to trigger deployments right from the command line. But it does not provide on-premise solution that Cloud foundry provides.

Incentivized

• Reduce workload for security analysts
• Improved visibility for container and application security
• Improved security knowledge on areas for improvement in the infrastructure setup

• Positive impact, since it simplifies the deployment time by a huge margin. Without cloud foundry, deploying a code needs coordination with infrastructure teams, while with cloud foundry, its a simple one line command. This reduces the deployment time from at least few hours to few minutes. Faster deployments promote faster dev cycle iterations.
• Code maintenance such as upgrading a Node or Java version is as simple as updating the build-pack. Without cloud foundry, using web logic, the specific version only supports a specific version of Java. So updating the version involves upgrading the version of web logic that needs to involve few teams. So without cloud foundry, it takes at least few days, with cloud foundry, its a matter of few mins.
• Overall, happier Developers and thats harder to quantify.

Incentivized