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In today’s world of SaaS products, a common methodology has emerged with the purpose of providing an outline for building well structured and scalable applications. It’s called the “12-Factor App” methodology, and it’s about to change the way you approach the architecture of your next app.
If you’ve had a lot of experience deploying applications, then you may be well aware that the deployment process can be complicated and extensive to say the least. Virtualization, networking, and setting up runtime environments are just a few of the headaches involved. The 12-Factor App methodology doesn’t eliminate the complexity altogether, but it does create a framework for organizing the process in order to maintain a healthy and scaleable application.
But how should these difficult architecture necessities be handled, in such a way that each of the 12-Factor App principles can be met? The following paragraphs explain how you can meet the standards of the 12-Factor App methodology, while easily overcoming the difficult realities involved in your application infrastructure and deployment setup.
A key tool in this process is AppFog, a Platform-as-a-Service product offered by CenturyLink Cloud to allow application developers to build software without having to focus on infrastructure.
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The 12 Factors
As made apparent by the title, the 12-Factor App methodology is a list of principles, each explaining the ideal way to handle a subset of your application. The 12 factors are as follows:
1. Codebase – One codebase tracked in revision control, many deploys
The first principle of the 12-Factor App methodology is related to your application’s codebase. The most important point here is to ensure that your application is tracked with revision control, and that it sits in a central repository that is accessible to your developers. This is most commonly handled by using Git or SVN to store your code.
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Source: SitePoint