December 2020 Summaries

Fly.io has introduced a new feature that allows users to delay VM shutdowns up to 24 hours, catering to applications with long-lived connections such as live video streaming services and database servers. This update enables users to specify the signal sent during shutdown and the time allowed for VMs to be kept alive after receiving the signal. The new feature aims to improve compatibility with various applications and reduce errors caused by abrupt terminations.

Fly.io, a platform that transforms containers into fast-booting VMs and runs them close to users, has made it easy to connect those swarms privately to other networks with WireGuard. The company aims to make it straightforward for users to get just about anything running on Fly.io by enabling private network connections between apps deployed on the platform. This includes support for IPv6 Private Networking and WireGuard Peering, allowing seamless connection of containers to any network using WireGuard.

Fly.io offers a range of VMs for developers to run their container apps close to users. The new VMs come in two flavors: shared-cpu with up to 2GB RAM and dedicated-cpu with up to 64GB RAM. Pricing varies depending on the VM type, CPU(s), and RAM. Fly.io aims for a 70% margin on VMs while minimizing operational headaches. They fund new hardware with revenue from large customers and offer shared CPU VMs to fill in gaps at lower prices. These VMs are suitable for bursty apps and have favorable pricing results. However, running databases on ephemeral VMs is not ideal, as they require persistent storage.

Fly.io introduces 6PN, a feature that enables private networking within an organization's applications deployed on the platform. This feature aims to simplify and enhance security by allowing services to communicate with each other without public IP addresses or manual certificate management. With 6PN, every instance of every application in an organization has an additional IPv6 address for internal communication. The DNS is used to resolve these addresses within the organization's network. This feature will soon be enabled by default and requires no additional configuration.

Fly.io has lowered its bandwidth pricing by 75% for apps running on their platform. They now charge $0.02 per GB for outbound data transfer from North America and Europe, and $0.04 per GB almost everywhere else. The new pricing aims to accommodate both small web applications and large data-intensive apps while maintaining transparency and predictability. Fly.io offers a free tier with 160GB of bandwidth usage per month for side projects or low-volume use cases.