platform.sh

What is the Platform.sh Partner Program

For digital agencies, Platform.sh offers a number of incentives and benefits that make our service more attractive and your business more profitable. The team behind the Digital Agency Partner Program, and our guests today, explain how this partner program includes exclusive pricing, co-selling, and special features. 

Revamping the partner program

We brought on Chantal Pastorek to revamp and relaunch the Platform.sh partner program. Now, as our Agency Partner Manager for North America, she explains the value proposition we’re looking for, “We wanted to find a way to really identify the agency partners that were going to work with us to co-sell, and to achieve goals for both the agency and Platform.sh. We wanted to figure out who our actual partners were and clean that up across our systems.”

Identifying and expanding the partner profile

Chantal touches on the diversity of our partner organizations, “The types of agencies we want to work with are people building websites, managing multiple projects, or building out different web applications.” 

Aaron Porter, Partner Program Global VP, credits the visionary architecture of the Partner Program toolset for not limiting our audience. “We don't have to be a tool or a program that's focused on one particular type of agency. We have the capabilities to take on partners that are still growing in complexity or are already a large agency.” 

The Partner Portal: your one-stop partnership hub

Chantal gives the lowdown on what’s included in our partner portal. “The partner portal was created as a resource for partners, so they could access training, register and track their opportunities, but also access materials for co-selling, competitive intel, and marketing assets.” In the product dashboard, we share with partners what’s being released, what’s coming up, and opportunities to provide feedback, input, and ideas.

Sell more, sell better: partner enablement

For Aaron, “enablement” is the key word. Every step of our partner program is about enabling partners to sell more and better to their clients. “Whether it's technical expertise training, a strategic kind of selling session, a pre-sales session, or co-selling live, each one of those pieces of enablement is what gets their project over the goal line and what drives the partner program. We want to powerfully aid our partners in their success.” 

Try the Platform.sh Partner Program to enable your agency’s success

Platform.sh
Learn more about us.
Get started with a free trial.
Have a question? Get in touch!

Platform.sh on social media
Twitter @platformsh
Twitter (France): @platformsh_fr
LinkedIn: Platform.sh
LinkedIn (France): Platform.sh
Facebook: Platform.sh

Watch, listen, subscribe to the Platform.sh Deploy Friday podcast:
YouTube
Apple Podcasts
Buzzsprout

Platform.sh is a robust, reliable hosting platform that gives development teams the tools to build and scale applications efficiently. Whether you run one or one thousand websites, you can focus on creating features and functionality with your favorite tech stack.

We continue our Language Spotlight series with Java, an object-oriented programming language that has shaped the course of the internet in enormous ways. Today we speak with two Java champions, Monica Beckwith and Geertjan Wielenga, to discuss Java’s impact so far as well as its course for the future.

What is a Java Champion?

Since we have two Java champions as guests today, let’s start off with defining a Java champion. Monica and Geertjan describe the term as a collection of expert knowledge, a sign that you have contributed to and are committed to the Java community, and last but not least, a group of friends. Geertjan adds, “It’s a badge of honor as well.”

With their extensive Java experience, Monica and Geertjan are well-positioned to define what has made Java one of the top languages in the world throughout its 25-year history.

Java’s defining features and attributes

Java is a mature language supported by a huge and vibrant community, with extensive information and documentation available to all levels of learners. Our two guests also emphasize that Java has evolved with the times, and that this adaptability is a defining characteristic of the language. They list others, like:

• Portability
• Garbage collection
• Memory management
• Static typing 
• Functional programming 

When not to use Java

While Java is a great choice for many instances, our guests acknowledge that there are cases where it’s best to use another language. Geertjan says Java isn’t great for front-end work, and smaller applications, “... in particular, if you're creating a shopping cart, or you're creating some hotel booking system, or some other relatively lightweight project, Java is probably the wrong language.” 

Our guests’ final words on Java

Java is a mature, approachable, adaptable language that’s been extremely influential to the world of development. Geertjan sums it up. “Java is a vibrant community of enthusiastic and friendly people all over the world. If you want to learn a language to get started in programming, Java is definitely a good choice to make.”

Try Java on Platform.sh

Platform.sh
Learn more about us.
Get started with a free trial.
Have a question? Get in touch!

Platform.sh on social media
Twitter @platformsh
Twitter (France): @platformsh_fr
LinkedIn: Platform.sh
LinkedIn (France): Platform.sh
Facebook: Platform.sh

Watch, listen, subscribe to the Platform.sh Deploy Friday podcast:
YouTube
Apple Podcasts
Buzzsprout

Platform.sh is a robust, reliable hosting platform that gives development teams the tools to build and scale applications efficiently. Whether you run one or one thousand websites, you can focus on creating features and functionality with your favorite tech stack.

Meilisearch is an open source search engine meant for small-to-medium size applications that are just getting off the ground. With a simpler, more elastic experience than many of the market leaders, Meilisearch aims to provide an executable, fast, and easily customizable search engine to fit more common use cases.

Meilisearch deeply values its open source roots

Meilisearch has been open source from its beginning. In fact, the three founders, Clément Renault, Thomas Payet, and Quentin de Quelen, never had a strategy for making it commercial. Instead, they aimed for Meilisearch to adhere to the values of open source as much as possible. Erlend Sogge Heggen, of Meilisearch Developer Relations emphasized, “When you have an open source product that you want to drive forward, you want to make it sustainable, make sure people can actually get paid to work on this thing, while at the same time maintaining your open source values and not doing something that feels like it goes against the open source ethos.” 

Meilisearch appeals to the developer experience 

In addition to their open source origins, Meilisearch aims to appeal to developers in other ways. As Thomas Payet, Meilisearch COO, says, “We are really sensitive when it comes to developer experience. And we know that not all developers work in the same ways.” The use of Rust as the language of choice for Meilisearch is another example. Thomas calls it a “no-brainer” and cites a few advantages of Rust for developers, such as:

• The ability to maintain a big codebase easily
• A very modern ecosystem
• A new, young, friendly, and active community 

Meilisearch provides speed in multiple areas

Other commonly used search engines, like Elasticsearch, have a lot of power, but they can take so long to set up and configure that it wastes everyone’s time. In a small or medium size company, time is an especially precious resource. Meilisearch aims to be fast to set up, configure, and to use. Thomas refers to Meilisearch’s instant “as-you-type” search results, saying, “We know that the person that will use our search engine, they will just type the beginning of the word and they want to find the document as fast as possible.”

Try Meilisearch in action  https://docs.platform.sh/

Platform.sh
Learn more about us.
Get started with a free trial.
Have a question? Get in touch!

Platform.sh on social media
Twitter @platformsh
Twitter (France): @platformsh_fr
LinkedIn: Platform.sh
LinkedIn (France): Platform.sh
Facebook: Platform.sh

Watch, listen, and subscribe to the Platform.sh Deploy Friday podcast:
YouTube
Apple Podcasts
Buzzsprout

Platform.sh is a robust, reliable hosting platform that gives development teams the tools to build and scale applications efficiently. Whether you run one or one thousand websites, you can focus on creating f

Use Platform.sh’s extensibility to your advantage

Platform.sh is a highly extensible platform for managing your development workflow. As Larry Garfield, Director of Developer Experience, says, “We try to make Platform.sh an extensible system because we want to enable others to come up with better ideas than we have.”

As a part of that, many Platform.sh customers have built their own custom tooling on top of Platform.sh. Serhey Dolgushev, lead developer at Contextual Code, says they decided to move all their projects to Platform.sh. But he found out doing it manually was, as he terms it, “a nightmare”, so he wrote a script to help. In fact, we found Serhey’s migration script so useful, we put it in our official documentation and encourage all our customers to use it.

Matthias Bolt Lesniak, a TYPO3 consultant with Pixelant, used Platform.sh’s extensibility to build a Log Analyzer tool for PHP projects. This tool, he says, helped Pixelant gain valuable visibility into exactly how they were using resources, by mapping memory usage, flagging issues with project health, and overall, “it’s helped us to see what is really necessary for a good end user experience on the website.”

What’s new and exciting for Platform.sh

In this episode we also speak to María de Antón, Product Manager at Platform.sh, who reveals a new and major feature, Activity Scripts. Activity Scripts are custom pieces of JavaScript code that are added to your Platform.sh project via a single API call or CLI command. They allow your projects to do things like:

• Interact with third-party services 
• Automate complex tasks when an activity is triggered or has completed
• Set up custom notifications, alerts, or reminders
• Be compliant across your fleet of sites by ensuring that all your projects are using the latest supported services and runtimes

Platform.sh’s future plans

When Maria asks which feature request they would want brought to life, Matthias says, “a reverse proxy cache would be so cool.” Serhey wants to be able to precisely specify the amount of resources per service, in addition to the predefined sizes like small, medium, large, that Platform.sh already offers. 

Check out the Activity Script documentation to find out how Platform.sh’s new feature can help you.

Platform.sh
Learn more about us.
Get started with a free trial.
Have a question? Get in touch!

Platform.sh on social media
Twitter @platformsh
Twitter (France): @platformsh_fr
LinkedIn: Platform.sh
LinkedIn (France): Platform.sh
Facebook: Platform.sh

Watch, listen, and subscribe to the Platform.sh Deploy Friday podcast:
YouTube
Apple Podcasts
Buzzsprout

Platform.sh is a robust, reliable hosting platform that gives development teams the tools to build and scale applications efficiently. Whether you run one or one thousand websites, you can focus on creating features and functionality with your favorite tech stack and leave managing infrastructure and processes to us.

Our work lives have changed

During this episode, Robert Douglass goes live with the founders of Mattermost, Nextcloud, and Platform.sh to discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the way we live and work. 

There is no question that our work lives have been upended dramatically. With children staying home, there are new demands on our time. Most of us no longer commute to the office, and are carving out a place to work in our own homes, where space can be limited. Many of us are also struggling with the lack of social connection the office used to bring. On top of this, there is an ever-present layer of stress from simply living through a pandemic.

How tech companies handle remote work challenges

We have much to learn from tech companies, especially those who are already remote, on the most effective way to adapt to these changes.

• Choose your tools wisely -- Frank Karlitschek, the CEO and Founder of Nextcloud, says they have felt better prepared for the pandemic as a remote-first company, and they know what tools are most effective for them. Says Frank, “We use tools that let people work from where and how they want,” like Zoom, Google Hangouts, and Mattermost.
• Introduce flexibility -- Mattermost is remote-first too. Corey Hulen, their CTO and Co-Founder, says flexibility in timing and working hours are crucial. One of their most effective strategies has been to adopt an “anti-meeting” mentality, which focuses more on asynchronous communication to get things done. 
• Think people-first -- Fred Plais, CEO and Co-Founder of Platform.sh, notes that they actively promote a family-first culture, emphasizing their number one priority is ensuring their employees feel taken care of. When the pandemic hit, Fred’s first step was to reassure all employees no one’s job was in jeopardy.

What the future of work may hold

The shift toward remote work has steadily been on the upswing, but COVID-19 has massively accelerated the arc. Around the world, companies are suddenly questioning the status quo and whether they truly need big headquarters and long commutes. But all three CEOs agree this willingness to question and be flexible is a huge positive that has come out of such troubled times.

Try Mattermost and Nextcloud today on Platform.sh.

Platform.sh
Learn more about us
Get started with a free trial
Have a question? Get in touch!

Platform.sh on social media
Twitter: @platformsh
Twitter (France): @platformsh_fr
LinkedIn: Platform.sh
LinkedIn (France): Platform.sh
Facebook: Platform.sh

Watch, listen, and subscribe to the Platform.sh Deploy Friday podcast
YouTube
Apple Podcasts
Buzzsprout

Platform.sh is a robust, reliable hosting platform that gives development teams the tools to build and scale applications efficiently. Whether you run one or one thousand websites, you can focus on creating features and functionality with your favorite tech stack and leave managing infrastructure and processes to us.