I think we all share the sentiment that App Engine is absolutely a blast to work with when it's working well. We've heard the feedback and are working on features to really help developers. For instance, the cold starts will always be an issue, but we are hoping reserved instances will work well. There are other features that we think will help developers address the issues you've mentioned.
I feel like up under very recently, App Engine has been having an identity crisis. Do we want to allow folks to run arbitrary code that currently runs outside App Engine, or do we want to impose restrictions for working in our environment that allow autoscaling and access to Google technologies, that, until App Engine, were only accessible internally? We're finding more and more that we're learning towards the latter, which has the promise of releasing unbridled power into the hands of developers, but will ultimately force developers to learn a different model of development. Experienced App Engine developers always tell us that getting used to working with the datastore or the 30 second limits takes a non-trivial amount of mental processing power, but once they've gotten past those barriers, development processes become much more comfortable again. We're likely to embrace this model more in future releases. App Engine will favor developers that are looking to solve problems and are flexible with implementation details, not developers that are inflexible with the implementation details of how their problems are solved. -- Ikai Lan Developer Programs Engineer, Google App Engine Blogger: http://googleappengine.blogspot.com Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/appengine Twitter: http://twitter.com/app_engine On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 5:16 PM, jacek.ambroziak <jacek.ambroz...@gmail.com>wrote: > Ikai, > > I do not think you really addressed JY's pain, which I also share. > Some of us have invested a lot of time and energy into building > GAE-based services. We would like to move to "production" stage > but frequent "denials of service" make our applications look bad > to customers. > Also, for what I am trying to do, > > 1) I need more than 10 applications > 2) more space for static files in WARs > 3) more memory (quite often I run into OutOfMemory errors) > 4) and of course fewer cold starts or 500 errors > > I really like GAE's APIs, tools and dashboard > but I find it *difficult to deliver* a service > that I need to host in the Cloud > based on GAE's current reality. > > GAE is developer friendly (modulo all the contortions > we need to go through when, say, a data chunk is 1.2 MB), > but as far as production goes ... well ... :-( > > Is there a hope for us on the horizon > or do we have to bite the bullet and migrate elsewhere? > > PS. For some apps (I do have an Android news app which > preparses Reuters news on GAE and serves binary XML > to Android) I never had any issues; the app does not > need much memory or data to work, and it hardly uses > the datastore) -- so for some small apps things work > just great. More demanding services do run into walls > unfortunately. > > > On Nov 8, 9:50 pm, "Ikai Lan (Google)" > <ikai.l+gro...@google.com<ikai.l%2bgro...@google.com> > > > wrote: > > I'm biased, naturally, but here's my piece: > > > > They're both great, young platforms, and successful businesses have been > > built on both Google App Engine as well as Amazon EC2. Amazon's lower > level > > access appeals to some, whereas Google App Engine's abstractions appeal > to > > the folks in this group. > > > > Have you actually used EC2 before? If not, new accounts can sign up for a > > free "micro" instance. You'll want to check this out before you make any > > decisions. Since you're already looking at EC2, why not look at VPS > > solutions? I personally prefer a provider such as Slicehost or Linode to > EC2 > > for anything I can't currently do on Google App Engine. > > > > -- > > Ikai Lan > > Developer Programs Engineer, Google App Engine > > Blogger:http://googleappengine.blogspot.com > > Reddit:http://www.reddit.com/r/appengine > > Twitter:http://twitter.com/app_engine > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Mon, Nov 8, 2010 at 5:59 PM, JY <jy2...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > I want to ask fellow GAE users whether you think GAE is good choice to > > > build real business on? > > > I have used GAE for some personal projects, and right now help a > > > friend on a tiny start up (but with big dream). The project is related > > > to social network - I am thinking of two options: > > > 1, GAE > > > The benefits are obvious. However, it is also locking you in....you > > > don't have much control over it. If you are unhappy later, you will > > > have to redo the persistence layer and migrate data etc. > > > 2, EC2 > > > You have much more control, and if the start-up gets funding, it is > > > easy to migrate to dedicated hosting or even its own data center. The > > > down side is developer (me, and only me) will have to spend quite some > > > time to take care of the infrastructure (although I like this kind of > > > work...) > > > > > I think my biggest concern of GAE is over the quality of service, and > > > the data-store - if I go EC2, I probably will use a NoSQL solution > > > like MogoDb, or Cassandra. The development efforts might be similar - > > > all products are sort of young, hot, and limited. > > > > > Thanks. > > > > > JY > > > > > -- > > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups > > > "Google App Engine for Java" group. > > > To post to this group, send email to > > > google-appengine-j...@googlegroups.com. > > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > > google-appengine-java+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<google-appengine-java%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com><google-appengine-java%2B > unsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > > > . > > > For more options, visit this group at > > >http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine-java?hl=en. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Google App Engine for Java" group. > To post to this group, send email to > google-appengine-j...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > google-appengine-java+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<google-appengine-java%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine-java?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google App Engine for Java" group. 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