StrongLoop announces most complete process manager for Node.js clustering with Nginx support built-in

[Jordan Kasper]

The announcement link: http://strongloop.com/strongblog/node-js-process-manager-cluster-load-balancer/

StrongLoop just announced a complete Node.js process manager. It improves on the existing management tools such as forever and pm2 by adding a GUI (StrongLoop Arc),  nginx integration, remote management, automated build and multi-host deploy, and more.

Quick poll: what are you using currently in production for this?

Follow up for conversation: what features do you think are missing from the current available tools?

(I had been using forever, and I think the nginx integration and availability of a GUI is pretty sweet.)

--Jordan

[Alan Hoffmeister]

Why nginx? As far as I know it buffers incoming uploads, killing
Node.js purpose.

--
Alan Hoffmeister
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[Jordan Kasper]

Alan:

nginx provides a nice front to Node.js as a load balancer across multiple machines. Also, (for me) it can be used to front multiple Node applications, all on different ports, but all serving up from port 80 for web consumption. Point being: nginx doesn't kill the purpose of Node, it allows an otherwise single thread, single port process (node) to be run across machines and be load balanced as necessary. I also see some people using it to serve static files instead of using Node for that... not sure about performance on that.

--Jordan

[Matt]

I don't use any of the "node" process managers because they don't solve the problem of starting your process at server boot. I use init scripts, or upstart, or runit or systemd like you're supposed to for a service. Anyone using forever or pm2 likely doesn't understand sysops.

Does this strongloop tool solve that? Doesn't read like it does.

--

[// ravi]

On Feb 9, 2015, at 12:46 PM, Jordan Kasper <jor...@strongloop.com> wrote:
>
> StrongLoop just announced a complete Node.js process manager. It improves on the existing management tools such as forever and pm2 by adding a GUI (StrongLoop Arc) …



Re: the above, PM2 has not one, but two GUIs (web UIs) with varying functionality, at last count.

I read the page you linked to, and followed the links around. From all these bits of info, I gather this process manager requires the use of StrongLoop’s Arc and other bits, and these are free for up to 2 processes, and paid products ($1000/month or above) beyond that?

—ravi

[Zach Rollyson]

PM2 has generators for init scripts that I have used on debian based servers and modified slightly for use on solaris servers with success.

[// ravi]

On Feb 9, 2015, at 1:17 PM, Zach Rollyson <za...@izimobile.com> wrote:
>
> This reads like an advertisement but it feels like it's not meant to.
>


StrongLoop, IMHO, would do well to write two announcements for such things: one for PR use (which, as a business, they no doubt need to do), and one for technical readers and the community. But with $9 million in the bank, I am sure they can afford better advisors than me. :-)

—ravi

[Jordan Kasper]

Ha! Ravi: point taken... we should have another "technical" announcement. I'll see what I can drum up, but a lot of the engineers are busy building stuff and don't want to write about it. :)

--Jordan

[Aria Stewart]

> On Feb 9, 2015, at 1:39 PM, Zach Rollyson <za...@izimobile.com> wrote:
>
> PM2 has generators for init scripts that I have used on debian based servers and modified slightly for use on solaris servers with success.

Indeed, and I use ndm for this.

[Jordan Kasper]

I've seen those as well... that's the only "solution" I've seen around, and honestly, they're not much better than a gist of "here's what I did". Not saying they aren't perfectly acceptable solutions... just not a wider solution.

--Jordan

[Zach Rollyson]

So does StrongLoop have a wider "solution"? and by "wider" do you mean running on a Windows machine or something? adding a GUI on top of it?

[Jordan Kasper]

Zach:

In terms of defining a "wider" solution, I dunno. :) I guess I meant a single solution for Node specifically that would operate on various OSes and do what StrontgLoop pm does (or pm2/forever). Why, what sort of solution were you referring to? ;)

As for what StrongLoop is providing with this new release: it is a replacement for pm2 or forever that provides more than just an integrated GUI: it also has support for multi-machine deploys and monitoring, as well as integration with nginx for load balancing. It does not provide a replacement for something like upstart. It does, however, support nginx integration on other platforms, and since Node runs on multiple platforms we have that aspect covered to some degree.

--Jordan

[Zach Rollyson]

I meant what would a wider solution than generating init scripts be.  I read your response to mean you viewed init scripts as somehow substandard (given the quotation of "solution") to some other thing and wanted to know what that other thing was.  I can only think of a wider solution as being more init scripts for more platforms all packaged & abstracted into a GUI such as StrongLoop's.

That aside, though, your process manager looks like a very lovely, neat package of enterprise devops tools; part of which I probably would have been using since the December Arc announcement if not for the cost.

[Ryan Graham]

StrongLoop's PM does indeed come with support for running as an OS service, and that is the strongly recommended way of using it.

It comes with installers/generators for both Upstart (0.6 and 1.4 compatible flavours) and systemd, which take care of running as an unprivileged user, making the usual NOFILE limit adjustment, and some other little things.

~Ryan

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[Alex Kocharin]

 

Monitoring, profiling, remote management... Makes me wonder, does strongloop process manager have a remote shell implementation in case server administrators don't know how to setup ssh? (that was a sarcasm, not an actual feature request)

 

pm2, phusion passenger, now that strongloop thing, they all go into the same direction. You add deployment tools, you add monitoring tools, and in the end we have a fat package that pretends to do everything and smells of vendor locking. With a price tag attached.

 

So, I'm asking io.js community: what can we do about that? How can I get a simple process manager that does nothing except what it's supposed to do?

 

Maybe we could take a look at PM2 0.5.x (one of the earlier releases) and write a new process manager that follows the same interface. It was simple and easy two years ago, unfortunately, pm2 development went in the wrong direction.

 

Or implement clustering for forever somehow. Last I checked, it was the only thing that's missing in there.

 

 

09.02.2015, 22:17, "Jordan Kasper" <jor...@strongloop.com>:

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[Ryan Graham]

Sorry for the late reply. strong-pm (like many StrongLoop modules, but admittedly not all) is open source.

You can use it under the Artistic license without paying anything.

~Ryan

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