back to article Heroku tech change leaves customer with bill-shock

The cloud is not as easy or as simple as its providers' marketing departments may want you to believe – that's the moral of the story of a startup and its platform provider Heroku. Web-startup Rap Genius, which pays Heroku $20,000 a month in fees, alleged in a forceful blog post published on Tuesday that the Salesforce-owned …

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  1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. The Nazz

    Here you go, think you'll be needing one of these .......

    C

    That is all.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Getting Dependent

    It's so exciting - dynamically scaling websites!!! But so stupid. Why? Because you don't need it now. And if you do need it then you can afford smarter people to plan and scale your web application as appropriate. Smart tech companies are like smart power companies - they plan ahead for peak utilisation periods and slowly, but methodically, bring capacity in and out as required.

    If you start small dependent on a custom API then you end up big dependent on that custom API - and a dependent customer is a screwed customer.

    1. Fatman

      Re: Getting Dependent ... and a dependent customer is a screwed customer.

      Try explaining that concept to beancounters whose sole focus is on saving money, and as such, are incapable of seeing the forest for the trees.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm personally all for pushing for larger discounts,

    But if I can't get what I consider a reasonable price, I take my business elsewhere. Taking this public is really quite childish.

    Judging by the description, they are so tightly integrated with Heroku and never even accounted for this possibility - but it just shows how stupid and naive people are about SAAS and PAAS which are built on non-standard systems.

    Still blames needs to be handed out - Both development anad management should be fired for not planning redudancy into their product :)

    Its simple -

    Plan A, Rule number 1 - Always have a plan B

    Plan B, Rule number 2 - Always have a plan C

  5. pixl97
    Linux

    Lesson.

    Lesson 1. Never believe the performance metrics giving to you from the people you pay. They will only show themselves in the best possible light.

    Solution for lesson 1. Monitor your sites performance from different 3rd party locations, preferably from locations across the world where you have concentrations of customers.

    Lesson 2. Proprietary software locks you in to a provider. Even though in the beginning the software sounds like the sweetest thing since sugar and is completely buzzword compliant, Even a simple change by the provider can send costs skyrocketing.

    Solution for lesson 2. Standards compliant and/or open source software. Do not tie your data to one program. Look at your software/platform as an investment. If it has no liquidity or fungibility you are stuck with the pricing of one company rather than an entire market. Monopolies rarely treat their customers fairly.

    1. Fatman

      Re: Lesson.... slight correction needed

      This sentence needs to be corrected;

      If it has no liquidity or fungibility you are stuck with the pricing of one company rather than an entire market.

      it should read:

      If it has no liquidity or fungibility you are fucked by the pricing of one company.

      FTFY

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