Node.js in Production

Curiosity Media runs the world’s largest Spanish learning website, SpanishDict.com, backed by many different Node.js applications. Since rolling out our first Node.js applications over a year ago, we have collected a fair amount of good and bad operational experiences.

I created a talk about our journey with Node.js for the Seattle Node.js Meetup group’s May 8th, 2013 event. My slides are available at the following locations:

  • GitHub Site: A live, navigable reveal.js website. (Note: use the space bar to advance slides and arrow keys to navigate.)
  • SlideShare: More traditional format, with download (PDF) links.

And, here’s an embedded format:

Five Node.js Production Tips

My talk discussed the following five topics:

  • Know when to Node: Should you use Node.js?
  • Keep up with Node: Stay up to date with Node.js and libraries.
  • Design for failure: Fail and recover at multiple levels.
  • Isolate services: Separate resource and failure classes.
  • Analyze everything: Data drives problem discovery and action.

There is, of course, much more to running Node.js in production, but hopefully my talk and slides provide a bit of insight into some of the considerations to keep in mind when taking a Node.js application to production.