AWS Elastic Beanstalk vs. Catalyst by Zoho vs. Oracle Java SE Subscription

I have been using AWS Elastic Beanstalk for more than 5 years, and it has made our life so easy and hassle-free. Here are some scenarios where it excels -

• I have been using different AWS services like EC2, S3, Cloudfront, Serverless, etc. And Elastic Beanstalk makes our lives easier by tieing each service together and making the deployment a smooth process.
• N number of integrations with different CI/CD pipelines make this most engineer's favourite service.
• Scalability & Security comes with the service, which makes it the absolute perfect product for your business.

Personally, I haven't found any situations where it's not appropriate for the use cases it can be used. The pricing is also very cost-effective.

Incentivized

The Oracle Java SE Subscription is a useful service that can support larger organizations that need to implement quick feature development and need to do so with maximum support with minimal fuss. Performance can vary due to the nature of Javas JVM having to boot upon every start and there can be some compatibility issues with a few third-party systems. Smaller organizations would be better off utilizing Java SDK or OpenJDK as these are free but don't have the benefit of direct support from Oracle. If a larger organization has a long history of using Java and has legacy systems running on older versions of Java, then the extra support needed will more than justify the cost If you are heavily invested in Java and need to support applications running on older versions such as Java 8, or you want to use OracleJDK, then you would want to consider getting the subscription for its support and patches.

Incentivized

• Getting a project set up using the console or CLI is easy compared to other [computing] platforms.
• AWS Elastic Beanstalk supports a variety of programming languages so teams can experiment with different frameworks but still use the same compute platform for rapid prototyping.
• Common application architectures can be referenced as patterns during project [setup].
• Multiple environments can be deployed for an application giving more flexibility for experimentation.

Incentivized

• Collect in an inventory all versions of Java that have been used in different applications.
• Determine the status of old versions of Java and update or apply essential security patches.
• Oracle Support is the best to be able to solve problems in an agile and safe way.
• Fast update cycles to make new features available.

Incentivized

• Limited to the frameworks and configurations that AWS supports. There is no native way to use Elastic Beanstalk to deploy a Go application behind Nginx, for example.
• It's not always clear what's changed on an underlying system when AWS updates an EB stack; the new version is announced, but AWS does not say what specifically changed in the underlying configuration. This can have unintended consequences and result in additional work in order to figure out what changes were made.

Incentivized

• AMC Usage details hard to Decipher and Categorize
• AMC JRE Upgrades have very limited Scheduling of Deployments, should be more like SCCM. Where you know exactly when deployments are going out. Not just when the Agent decides to check in.
• Cost is WAY too high

Incentivized

As our technology grows, it makes more sense to individually provision each server rather than have it done via beanstalk. There are several reasons to do so, which I cannot explain without further diving into the architecture itself, but I can tell you this. With automation, you also loose the flexibility to morph the system for your specific needs. So if you expect that in future you need more customization to your deployment process, then there is a good chance that you might try to do things individually rather than use an automation like beanstalk.

Incentivized

It provides an affordable way to protect your investment.

Incentivized

The overall usability is good enough, as far as the scaling, interactive UI and logging system is concerned, could do a lot better when it comes to the efficiency, in case of complicated node logics and complicated node architectures. It can have better software compatibility and can try to support collaboration with more softwares

Incentivized

As I described earlier it has been really cost effective and really easy for fellow developers who don't want to waste weeks and weeks into learning and manually deploying stuff which basically takes month to create and go live with the Minimal viable product (MVP). With AWS Beanstalk within a week a developer can go live with the Minimal viable product easily.

Incentivized

As I mentioned before, quality of support from Oracle Java SE Subscription is extraordinary. The speed of resolution and the expertise of the staff is really appreciated. We raised a high priority support incident which blocked our process [and] Oracle Java SE support did a quick analysis and provided a solution which took less time than we expected. They also help us in installing patches and updates whenever required.

Incentivized

- Do as many experiments as you can before you commit on using beanstalk or other AWS features. - Keep future state in mind. Think through what comes next, and if that is technically possible to do so. - Always factor in cost in terms of scaling. - We learned a valuable lesson when we wanted to go multi-region, because then we realized many things needs to change in code. So if you plan on using this a lot, factor multiple regions.

Incentivized

We also use Heroku and it is a great platform for smaller projects and light Node.js services, but we have found that in terms of cost, the Elastic Beanstalk option is more affordable for the projects that we undertake. The fact that it sits inside of the greater AWS Cloud offering also compels us to use it, since integration is simpler. We have also evaluated Microsoft Azure and gave up trying to get an extremely basic implementation up and running after a few days of struggling with its mediocre user interface and constant issues with documentation being outdated. The authentication model is also badly broken and trying to manage resources is a pain. One cannot compare Azure with anything that Amazon has created in the cloud space since Azure really isn't a mature platform and we are always left wanting when we have to interface with it.

Incentivized

It is more suitable and effective to opt for Oracle Java SE Subscription to receive enhanced support for your Java SE Applications. The support team is highly qualified and technically sound to manage your Java SE Applications properly. Also they are available 24*7 to make sure applications are up-to-date.

Incentivized

• till now we had not Calculated ROI as the project is still evolving and we had to keep on changing the environment implementation
• it meets our purpose of quick deployment as compared to on-premises deployment
• till now we look good as we also controlled our expenses which increased suddenly in the middle of deployment activity

Incentivized

• Code portability allowed us to run the same code on all platforms
• Security is always a key issue especially in the world of increasing cybersecurity laws. It only makes sense to invest in a secure development environment
• Developers appreciate rich community support for java se platform

Incentivized