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Frequently Asked Questions

  • Q : What is Kontena?
    • Kontena is a lightweight container that will run your apps and services in an isolated and secured manner. You can specify the power of the Kontena while setting up infra or creating services. One Kontena power specifies to 256 MB Memory and 128 MHz CPU.
  • Q : What is BPaaS?
    • BPaaS is App42 Backend solution running on App42 PaaS Platform. If you have backend requirement and you expect your app to have huge traffic, then BPaaS is specially for you, where you will get complete backend hosting just for you on App42 PaaS. Also if you are sensitive about your app data to be on dedicated database, then you definitely require BPaaS.
  • Q : How much Kontena power do i need to create BPaaS setup?
    • BPaaS setup comes with 3 predefined flavors – Light, Medium and Heavy. The amount of Kontena power depends on the flavor you choose to setup BPaaS. E.g, For a Light BPaaS setup, 4 Kontena power is needed. For medium, 8 Kontena power and for Heavy setup, 16 Kontena power is required.
  • Q : What are the different flavors I need to choose while creating BPaaS setup?
    • BPaaS setup comes in three flavors – Light, Medium and Heavy. These flavors are the configuration that we use for setting up multiple applications and services for the complete BPaaS setup.
  • Q : What are the configuration settings for Light, Medium and Heavy flavors?
    • BPaaS setup requires 2 Apps (App42 Cloud API and AppHQ Management Console) and 2 Services (MySQL and MongoDB) to be created. Below is the detail configuration for each App and Service in different flavors.

      Light –

      App42 Cloud API – 1 Kontena Power
      AppHQ Management Console – 1 Kontena Power
      MySQL – 1 Kontena Power
      MongoDB – 1 Kontena Power

      Medium –

      App42 Cloud API – 3 Kontena Power
      AppHQ Management Console – 1 Kontena Power
      MySQL – 2 Kontena Power
      MongoDB – 2 Kontena Power

      Heavy –

      App42 Cloud API – 6 Kontena Power
      AppHQ Management Console – 2 Kontena Power
      MySQL – 4 Kontena Power
      MongoDB – 4 Kontena Power
  • Q : My BPaas setup is taking too much time. what is going on behind the scenes?
    • BPaaS setup includes setting up multiple resources to work as a complete setup. All the required apps and services for the setup needs to be created and configured behind the scenes.
  • Q : How many Apps and Services are created when I create BPaaS setup?
    • BPaaS setup includes 2 Apps(AppHQ – Management Console and App42 Cloud API) and 2 Services (MySQL and MongoDB). All these apps and services are created and configured automatically for you by App42 PaaS.
  • Q : Why I am not able to delete certain Apps and Services individually?
    • Apps and Services which are part of BPaaS setup is not allowed to be deleted individually. As apps and services of the setup are dependent on each other. If any of one is deleted, setup will not be able to work.
  • Q : What is Kontena?
    • Kontena is a lightweight container that will run your apps and services in an isolated and secured manner. You can specify the power of the Kontena while setting up infra or creating services. One Kontena power specifies to 256 MB Memory and 128 MHz CPU.
  • Q : What is Service?
    • Services in the App42 PaaS are add-on components which are needed in an App. App42 PaaS supports multiple services like SQL databases, NoSQL databases and more.
  • Q : Can I save files on the Instance where my App is running?
    • App42 PaaS do not put any restriction on file writing but any data stored on the file system will not be available to other containers. And also the saved data will be deleted in case of next restart. You can use the file system to store the temp files which will be available for the life time of the request.
  • Q : Can I access the services from my local system?
    • Yes you can definitely make a tunnel to your service from anywhere using bindIP command. And use the service same way as you are running it on your local system.
  • Q : Where can I see my application logs?
    • You can see your application logs on the App List page in the AppHQ – App42 PaaS Management Console. Clicking on the ‘View Logs’ button will give you instance wise logs.
      You can also get the log urls from the Command Line Client by running app42 logs command & giving the app name.
  • Q : I deployed my application successfully, but application is not running. What do I need to do?
    • You can check the status of your App from Command Line Client as well as AppHQ – App42 PaaS Management Console. If the status of your App is INPROGRESS, it will be brought to the desired state in a short while.
  • Q : Can I deploy my app from GIT repository?
    • Yes you can deploy your app from GIT repository. If your GIT repository is public, then you do not need to do anything else to deploy it. But if you want to deploy the app from private repository, then you need to give pull permission to App42PaaS user for that repository.
  • Q : How can I change my App Name?
    • App name is the unique identity for your application which differentiates it from other apps. All the other things depends on your app name e.g. App URL. We have not given the option to change the app name once it has been created.
  • Q : How my application is scaled?
    • App42 PaaS scales your application horizontally or vertically as specified by user.
      A replica of the existing container is made when you scale your App horizontally by 1.
      In vertical scale cpu and memory is increased as specified by user.
  • Q : What benefits would I get after scaling my application?
    • Scaling your application will give the application, the power of load balancing & High Availability. Your application will not go down in case one of your app container is not behaving properly at that particular moment.
  • Q : How my data is protected from other processes running in same shared space?
    • All the containers running your application and services are completely isolated from each other. The process running on one container is not allowed to interact with the processes of other containers even if both the containers are of same application. Each container runs in isolation & does not affect the process of others.
  • Q : What would happen if traffic on my app increases suddenly?
    • We are working on the Auto Scalability feature to immediately spawn a new container in case of sudden heavy traffic on your application. Currently, you have to manually scale/descale your application, if you comprehend heavy traffic for your application.
  • Q : Does App42 PaaS take care of my data backup?
    • App42 PaaS takes care for backup of your data. By default backup is taken once in 24 hours and is saved for 120 hours. App42 PaaS user can modify the default setting from AppHQ – App42 PaaS Management Console. User can change the time window for backup and duration you want to keep you backed up data. If you want to increase the frequency of backups in day you can contact App42 support.
  • Q : For how long can I keep my App/Service in the STOPPED state?
    • App/Service can be in STOPPED state for at most 15 days. If App/Service is in STOPPED for more than 15 days, it is marked as INACTIVE and a notification is sent to the customer to either start their app/service or delete it. If no action is taken by the customer in the next 15 days, App/Service will automatically be deleted by App42 PaaS Platform.
  • Q : Can I restore my service backup?
    • You can easily restore the service backup by clicking on the Restore Backup button against the backup row shown in the Backup tab.
  • Q : How my Apps and Services are protected from others Apps?
    • All the containers running your applications & services on App42 PaaS platform are isolated from each other. One container process cannot access the processes of other containers even if they are of same App.
  • Q : Can I use background jobs in my application?
    • You do not need to spawn a separate container to run background jobs. You can easily run any background job from the same application which is running your web application.
  • Q : How much heap/perm size is given to standard java application?
    • Heap size is 3 times the memory you have chosen for your app. If your app is running on 512 MB RAM container, then heap size is 1.5 GB for that container.
  • Q : Can my application be able to use services outside of App42 PaaS?
    • Yes you can integrate any 3rd party service into your application. But using App42 PaaS services are recommended as it reduces the latency time for your application
  • Q : Can I migrate application hosted on other PaaS providers to App42 PaaS?
    • App42 PaaS does not impose any restrictions on the configuration of App deployed on App42 PaaS platform. You can easily migrate your application running to App42 PaaS.
  • Q : If my App requires runtime not supported by App42 PaaS, what do I need to do?
    • We have provided support for all the latest runtimes for all the languages supported. If you have any specific need, please contact support@shephertz.com
  • Q : Can I reset API/Secret key for my account?
    • Yes, You can definitely reset API/Secret Key at any time on the Profile page using AppHQ – App42 PaaS Management Console.
  • Q : Can I change my App URL?
    • App42 PaaS provides the URL as the combination of app name & the infrastructure provider you have chosen for your app. E.g. your app name is ‘wordjunkie’ & its deployed on AWS Oregon, you will get ‘wordjunkie.iab.app42paas.com’. You can easily map this URL to the custom URL you have taken from any DNS provider by mapping your custom domain to the App42 PaaS provided URL in the domain provider settings.
  • Q : If I need to install latest app42 client, do I need to uninstall the old one first?
    • You do not need to uninstall the old client in order to install the latest app42 client. RVM will automatically detect and use the latest app42 client.
  • Q : Are “Sticky Sessions” supported?
    • App42 routing mechanism does not support “Sticky Sessions”. All the incoming requests will be distributed in round robin manner to all the containers running your application.
  • Q : What is Static IP and what benefit will I get if I assign it to my App?
    • Static IP is an IP address that never changes. If you assign Static IP to your app then it will have the same IP address always irrespective of the operation (Start/Stop/Restart/Deploy etc.) you perform.
  • Q : How much Static IP costs?
    • Static IPs are free of cost.
  • Q : What is Soft and Hard (Start / Stop / Restart)?
    • Soft (Start / Stop / Restart) will perform the respective operation on App. For example, In the case of Soft stop your App is stopped, but VM is running. Charges for that VM will be applicable in that case.
    • Hard (Start / Stop / Restart) will perform the respective operation on VM. For example, In the case of Hard stop your VM is stopped. That means no charges will be incurred for that particular VM.