September 2023 Summaries

Koyeb has introduced four new regions in public preview, allowing users to deploy applications globally across six regions in the EU, US, and APAC in under a minute using a single CLI command, API call, or click. The platform focuses on simplifying global deployments by abstracting complexities related to infrastructure, networking, and providers, enabling developers to deploy full-stack applications and APIs without managing servers or Kubernetes. With support for popular frameworks, Koyeb automates the build process using buildpacks or Dockerfiles, deploying applications in Firecracker microVMs with a global edge network that includes 255 locations to ensure optimal performance and compliance. The new regions maintain the same pricing structure, starting at $2.7 per month, and the platform plans to offer a new Hobby plan with a free machine and managed PostgreSQL databases shortly. Koyeb's platform aims to provide a seamless, serverless experience for global deployments, supporting gRPC, HTTP/2, and WebSockets, and offers automation through Terraform, Pulumi, Go SDK, or API.

Koyeb introduces Metrics, a feature designed to enhance application performance monitoring and troubleshooting on its serverless platform by providing essential metrics without the need for infrastructure management. Users can access built-in observability tools that monitor CPU and RAM usage, request volumes, latency, and data transfers directly from the control panel, offering both instance-level and service-level insights. This feature, powered by Grafana Mimir, is integrated into Koyeb's serverless engine, allowing developers to focus on application development rather than infrastructure concerns. Users can view metrics with varying granularity and time frames to diagnose issues such as high error rates or resource constraints, with the option to scale services for better performance. Additionally, future enhancements are planned, including the addition of more metrics and a Prometheus-compatible endpoint, with user feedback encouraged through a public roadmap platform.

The blog post discusses the importance of build cache in optimizing the Docker build process, particularly when using Dockerfiles to create container images from source code. It explains how Docker caches each command's result during the build, allowing for faster subsequent builds if the cache remains valid. The cache invalidation occurs when changes to dependencies or application files are detected, prompting the re-execution of affected commands. The article suggests structuring Dockerfiles to place commands that change frequently at the end, to minimize cache invalidation. Furthermore, it describes how the Koyeb platform uses buildctl, a tool similar to Docker, to manage cache during deployments from GitHub repositories, enhancing efficiency by using a Docker registry as a cache. The platform allows for flexible deployments on high-performance microVMs globally, with options to use or skip cache based on deployment needs, and offers an introductory credit to encourage new users to try their service.

Koyeb has announced the general availability of Dockerfile-based deployments, allowing users to deploy any GitHub repository containing a Dockerfile across its global network without additional costs. This update provides developers with enhanced flexibility to deploy various applications, frameworks, and runtimes, including .NET, Rust, and Deno. Koyeb offers three deployment methods: building from Dockerfile, using Cloud Native Buildpacks for automatic runtime detection, and deploying pre-built container images. Developers can customize builds with Docker build arguments and environment variables, and utilize multi-stage builds to optimize Docker images for different environments. The platform also supports faster deployments through automated caching of Dockerfile layers. Koyeb facilitates rapid multi-region deployments, global load balancing, and zero-configuration private networking, with an incentive of $5.50 monthly credit for new users.