Why Stack Exchange Data Explorer is moving off the Windows Azure platform
blog.stackoverflow.com
blog.stackoverflow.com
Deployment on Heroku takes seconds in my experience. Certainly not 30 minutes!
Also, db backups on Heroku are easy. And if you don't want to use Heroku's built-in PostgreSQL db, it's easy to use Amazon's RDS instead.
It seems strange to imply that Heroku currently has the same problems they attribute to Azure.
Heroku is wonderful, don't get me wrong, but it is not all "I don't know anything about sysadminning and now I don't have too, git push origin deploy OK now I can go back to making rounded corners and drop shadows" peaches and cream. I have a client product on it. Half of the gems/plugins that I used required me to either hack the source or do some deep spelunking to find out why they aren't working. For example, I used TinyMCE editor for that nice Wordpress-esque WYSIWYG feel. TinyMCE is written in Javascript, and the configurations for the plugin causes the Javascript to be written out on first access. Heroku is not quite so happy when you try to write things to the hard drive, and died hard on that.
This was for a site which is pretty darn pedestrian as far as Rails projects go.
I also have yet to have a gem blow up in my face, though.
Kinda a blow for Azure...can't give it away..
To be fair, the author did say this:
>It is important to note that these issues are by no means specific to Azure; similar teething issues affect other Platform-As-A-Service providers such as Google App Engine and Heroku. When you are using a PAAS you are giving up a lot of control to the service provider. The service provider chooses which applications you can run and imposes a series of restrictions.
So it's a "blow" to Google App Engine and Heroku as well.
Sweeping everyone else under the same rug (or attempting to) just feels like a "we're complaining about your Azure platform's shortcomings, but hey, we can still be friends, see, we'll try to throw everyone else under the bus, too".