Professional Heroku Programming

Chapter 6

Working with Add-Ons

WHAT’S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• The Heroku add-on ecosystem
• Architectural considerations
• Exploring popular add-ons
• Installing add-ons
• Creating add-ons

When building applications, you may require tools, services, or components that are intrinsic to the architecture but not part of your source code. For example, data stores, e-mail services, and search capabilities are integral pieces of a successful application; however, providing these components may take significant time away from your core focus (building the application), assuming you already have the necessary skills to create, configure, and integrate such services for your application to consume. Enter add-ons.

This chapter explores the architectural considerations that you will need to make when selecting add-ons. There may be similar options for a desired technology, each with its own attributes to consider. We’ll explore those attributes and expand on what makes some add-ons popular for applications on Heroku. Then we will demonstrate installing add-ons both from the Heroku Dashboard and the command-line interface (CLI). You will see how easily you select any service your application requires and add it to the environment. The add-on will attach itself to your application automatically and be available for use, just as the service would have been if you had created it yourself. Finally, we will explain the process of creating add-ons.

THE HEROKU ADD-ON ECOSYSTEM

Add-ons are provided via an ecosystem ...