Laravel Dynamic Servers Laravel Package

title: Introduction weight: 1

This package can help you start and stop servers when you need them. The prime use case is to spin up extra working servers, based on a server image, that can help you process the workload on queues.

You can think of this as a sort of PHP based version of Kubernetes that has 5% of its features, but covers that 80% use case. For most PHP and Laravel developers, this package will also be easier to learn and use.

Typically, on your hosting provider, you would prepare a server snapshot, that will be used as a template when starting new servers.

After the package is configured, spinning up an extra servers is as easy as:

// typically, in a service provider

use Laravel\Horizon\WaitTimeCalculator;
use Spatie\DynamicServers\Facades\DynamicServers;
use Spatie\DynamicServers\Support\DynamicServersManager;

/*
 * The package will call the closure passed 
 * to `determineServerCount` every minute
 */
DynamicServers::determineServerCount(function(DynamicServersManager $servers) {
   /*
    * First, we'll calculate the number of servers needed. 
    * 
    * In this example, we will take a look at Horizon's 
    * reported waiting time. Of course, in your project you can 
    * calculate the number of servers needed however you want.    
    */
    $waitTimeInMinutes = app(WaitTimeCalculator::class)->calculate('default');
    $numberOfServersNeeded = round($waitTimeInMinutes / 10);

   /*
    * Next, we will pass the number of servers needed to the `ensure` method.
    * 
    * If there currently are less that that number of servers available,
    * the package will start new ones.
    * 
    * If there are currently more than that number of servers running,
    *  the package will stop a few servers.
    */
    $servers->ensure($numberOfServersNeeded);
});

Out of the box, the package supports UpCloud. You can create your own server provider to add support for your favourite hosting service.