One month later...
So I had this idea for a while and one month ago I decided to move forward with it. Now, exactly one month after that decision it's time to look back to see if we made any progress and what can be done to keep it on track and viable.
The Problem Setting
To me the conundrum is as following: you have a cool project, you know how to bring it online, you enjoy the process of fiddling around. But then 6 months later there's something else cool, hip, happening and capturing your attention. Your previous project sits just there doing it thing, but updating, securing and running it becomes burden. Next time you deploy an update, something on the server breaks an before you know it you've spent 2 hours on a 2 min update...
The Solution Direction
In short I want to build a server provisioning tool that lets you focus your time on development. Strackt will be a SaaS product, managed either trough a UI or an API. For me Strackt stands for Stack and React; we allow you to build a perfect preconfigured stack and we'll react to any changes, problems, etc. Strackt runs on templates making sure your servers are always up, up to spec, up to date and secure. You bring your cloud server, we'll provision it and keep it running.
For me this fixes an issue I keep running into. And listening to like minded people I learned that I'm not the only one. Playing is fun, maintaining is an irritation. Even with all the current automations I have in place, it just keep taking time to update the automations. Time to automate and outsource the automations 🤓
The Scenarios
How about for those of us that don't enjoy the playing, that just want to build cool shit and deploy it online. Not on a random shared hosting package and not in a docker or k8s container. Just on a server, where you can login when you want to and be greeted by a (well configured) command line. Just on a server where you are the only tenant and your hard work can securely run and keep running.
Or the case where you build something so cool that more and more people are using it. Of course you already moved on to something new, and you don't want to go back and reconfigure your server. Splitting into multiple webservers, keeping them in sync, creating a separate database server, configuring a load balancer, adding a dedicated Redis queue, etc. You also don't want to rewrite your project into endless containerised micro services, because you know, working on new stuff. It's another perfect automation case.
These projects can range from an overgrown WordPress site to custom build Laravel products. From a hobby project that fixes your football teams beer schedule, to your ever growing SaaS that's selling like hot-cakes. All need a simple, stable, up-to-date and secure environment that Strackt can maintain for you.
The Progress
So where did I end up after a month? At a 'pretty convinced to keep going' point. The basic provisioning templates are up and running; currently doing test cycles for safe updates, morphing environments and dependable rebuilds. Loads more to do in the areas of exceptions, speed and customisation but all in all further then I thought. In terms of automating and unlocking this for users I am more in the design phase. The basics are there: create a server object, run provisioning, deploy site, monitor state, etc. Not as far as I want it to be but still reasonable progress. Especially in terms of the things I already tried and threw away: I'm making solid progress.
Then progress in my head: bouncing between coding, thinking, learning and creating full-on chaos I am in a pretty good place. I have a well documented design on paper and a clear road to execute on. Main challenge for the coming month will be to focus, focus, focus and develop at least one of the desired use cases into a working happy path.
So far I am enjoying the idea, the work and the progress. Onwards and upwards!
The Path
What's next for the upcoming month. Time management is going to be an interesting challenge once again. Between my day job, home life, social life and the relaxation of my happy project some things are going to be squeezed and it's probably going to be my happy project. Something to keep a keep eye on.
For the coming weeks I want to refine the scope once more otherwise it becomes an untameable beast. Most importantly I want to get to a working API and UI for the 'simple' act of configuring and provisioning a template into a working server. From scratch to click to a working server. Feasible but tough.
In the meantime I want to explore some parts of the UX design, sprint planning (also to protect myself en stay on track) and put some more effort into the central security components. I'll definitely won't have enough time in between things to check all the boxes, but let's see where we get to.