Production checklist

Ployz is young and changing quickly. Before you move real users to your app, work through this list. Each item links to the page that does it.

Caution

Ployz doesn't back up databases or volumes yet. A volume lives on one server and isn't copied anywhere: if that server's disk is lost, so is the data.

Before you move real users

• Back up your data. Dump your databases on a schedule and keep the dumps off your servers; this is CLI-only for now. See Back up a database. Or keep your hosted database and point your app at it.
• Add a health check. Without one, a new replica gets traffic a few seconds after it starts, ready or not. See Deploy without downtime.
• Run two replicas on two servers. With one replica on one server, one failure takes your app down. Add a second server, then run more replicas. A service with a volume runs one replica, on the volume's server.
• Set CPU and memory limits. Otherwise one busy service can use all of its server's CPU and memory and starve the others. See Scaling.
• Wait for CI. A push deploys at once, even when your tests fail. See Wait for CI.
• Use your own domain. Generated addresses are for getting started. Custom domains need Pro, at $9 a month. See Add a custom domain.
• Look after your servers. Ployz doesn't install OS updates or harden your servers. Log in with SSH keys, not passwords, and turn on automatic security updates (unattended-upgrades on Ubuntu). If you add a firewall, keep these ports open. A reboot stops the services on that server until it's back.
• Watch your app yourself. Ployz doesn't send alerts when a service crashes or a server goes offline. Point an uptime monitor at your app's address, ideally at its health check path.

What Ployz doesn't do yet

• No automatic failover. If a server dies, the services that ran only there stop, and a database on it is down until the server is back. See When a server goes down.
• No rollbacks. To go back, revert the commit and push, or change the setting back and deploy.
• No Docker Compose files. Add each container as its own service.
• No autoscaling. You choose the number of replicas.
• No teams. Ployz is built for one person today.

Backups, snapshots, rollbacks and moving a database to a bigger server without downtime are planned.