Heroku Presents at AppDev Field Day 2

Build, Deploy, and Scale Your App Your Way with Heroku from Salesforce

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Heroku, a platform as a service (PaaS) provider, has been a pioneer in simplifying the process of building, deploying, and scaling applications. The platform allows developers to focus on their core tasks—coming up with ideas and writing code—while Heroku handles the complexities of infrastructure management. By abstracting away the need to manage servers, databases, and other backend components, Heroku enables developers to bring their applications to market faster and with less effort. This is particularly beneficial for enterprises that need to manage updates, security patches, and scaling without getting bogged down by the intricacies of cloud infrastructure. Heroku’s opinionated system provides a streamlined developer experience, allowing teams to focus on innovation rather than the “plumbing” of their applications.

As part of Salesforce, Heroku offers deep integrations with the Salesforce ecosystem, making it easier for businesses to extend their Salesforce applications and deliver seamless customer experiences. The platform is also a valuable tool for enterprises looking to migrate workloads to the cloud without having to navigate the complexities of services like AWS. Heroku simplifies this process by offering a set of primitives that handle the heavy lifting, allowing companies to focus on their core business functions. The platform has been widely adopted across various industries, including finance, retail, healthcare, and automotive, with major companies like T-Mobile and Live Nation relying on Heroku to scale their operations.

Heroku’s value proposition is evident in its ability to increase developer productivity, reduce DevOps costs, and provide a strong return on investment. The platform has supported over 13 million apps and handles more than 60 billion requests per day, demonstrating its reliability and scalability. Customer success stories, such as Health Sherpa and Leather Spa, highlight how Heroku can cater to both large enterprises and small businesses. Health Sherpa, for instance, was able to handle massive traffic spikes during open enrollment for health insurance, while Leather Spa, a single-developer operation, saw significant improvements in sales and operational efficiency. Heroku’s ability to “just work,” much like electricity from a socket, allows businesses to focus on what truly differentiates them in the market, leaving the infrastructure management to Heroku.

Introduced by Betty Junod, CMO and SVP, and presented by Adam Zimman, Sr. Director, Product Marketing, Heroku from Salesforce

Personnel: Adam Zimman, Betty Junod

Building, Deploying, and Scaling Applications with Heroku from Salesforce

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In this presentation, Julián Duque, Principal Developer Advocate at Heroku, demonstrates how developers can build, deploy, and scale applications using the Heroku platform. He introduces a fictitious company, Lumina Solar, which offers solar energy solutions and uses Heroku to manage its web applications. The architecture of Lumina Solar’s system is divided into two environments: staging for testing and production for live services. The application is split into two parts: an API connected to backend services and a UI built with modern web technologies like React and Node.js. Julián walks through the process of deploying the UI to Heroku’s Common Runtime using the Heroku dashboard, showing how developers can connect their GitHub repositories, set up automatic deployments, and manage scaling options for their applications.

Julián also explains the concept of “dynos,” which are the computational units where Heroku applications run. He demonstrates how to scale applications both vertically and horizontally, depending on the needs of the app, and introduces auto-scaling features that allow applications to automatically adjust based on traffic. This is particularly useful for handling high-traffic events like Black Friday sales. He also highlights Heroku’s built-in metrics dashboard, which provides insights into memory usage, response times, and other performance indicators. Developers can set up alerts for issues like failed requests or high response times, and these notifications can be sent to team members to ensure quick responses to potential problems.

The presentation also covers Heroku’s managed data services, such as Heroku Postgres, and how developers can easily provision databases for their applications. Julián demonstrates how to integrate third-party services like Papertrail for logging and Heroku Connect for syncing data between Heroku and Salesforce. He also touches on enterprise features like Private Spaces and Shield, which offer enhanced security and compliance for applications that need to meet standards like HIPAA or PCI. Finally, Julián shows how developers can use the Heroku CLI for managing applications, scaling, and deploying code, providing a flexible and powerful tool for those who prefer working in a terminal environment.

Personnel: Julián Duque

What’s Next for Heroku from Salesforce

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In this presentation, Chris Peterson, Senior Director of Product Management at Heroku, discusses the future of Heroku and its foundational principles, particularly the 12-Factor App Manifesto. This manifesto, created by Heroku co-founder Adam Wiggins, outlines best practices for building scalable and maintainable applications. These principles have guided Heroku’s development, ensuring that apps built on the platform can scale horizontally and integrate seamlessly with services like databases through environment variables. Heroku is now revisiting and modernizing the 12-Factor App Manifesto to address contemporary needs such as app identity, logging, and telemetry, and is actively seeking feedback from the developer community through open-source discussions.

Peterson also highlights recent advancements in Heroku’s scalability and language support. In 2024, Heroku introduced new features to ensure that customers can scale both horizontally and vertically, offering larger dynos with up to 128GB of memory and smaller options for enterprise customers. The platform has also modernized its language support, adding faster package managers like PNPM and new tools like Poetry for Python. Additionally, Heroku has expanded its Postgres offerings, providing larger database plans and new versions to accommodate growing customer needs. The platform has also integrated with other Salesforce services, such as Mulesoft Flex Gateway, to enhance API management and security within private spaces.

Looking ahead, Heroku is focusing on enhanced networking, including HTTP2 and HTTP3 support, and expanding its language ecosystem with the addition of .NET support. The platform is also working on deeper integrations with Salesforce through event-driven and API-driven solutions, allowing developers to easily connect Heroku apps with Salesforce events and APIs. Heroku is also embracing open standards, particularly in the Kubernetes ecosystem, and is collaborating with AWS to leverage new services and technologies. These efforts are part of a broader strategy to re-platform Heroku and refresh its core values, ensuring it remains a leading platform for developers in the cloud-native era.

Personnel: Chris Peterson