Choosing a platform - what are the options?
You can run Butler SOS on several platforms, each with their own pros and cons. This section should help you decide which platform is right for you.
As Butler SOS is written in Node.js, the tool in theory runs on all platforms where Node.js is available. It is also available as a Docker image.
Docker is by far the preferred way of running Butler SOS, mainly because it gives you a very nice, production grade (stable, scalable, monitorable etc) execution environment. If you are really serious about scalability and stability you could even run Butler SOS in Kubernetes.
Other platforms can be used too, of course - let’s look at the pros and cons of some of the more commonly used platforms:
| Platform | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| Docker | - Easy to set up Butler SOS in Docker - Easy to test new versions of Butler SOS - Use existing Docker infrastructure - Monitoring, restarts etc built into Docker - Runs on low cost hardware and OSs |
- Docker environment needed (if not already available). Setting up and running Docker is not hard, but does require somewhat other skills than those needed to run a Sense environment |
| Kubernetes | - Enterprise grade - Fault tolerant - Deployed alongside other enterprise applications |
- More difficult to set up than Docker |
| Windows server | - Butler SOS can run on same server as Qlik Sense, saving hardware/server costs - Pre-built, standalone binaries available |
- Running Butler SOS natively on the Sense server is a potential risk (usually a good idea to isolate systems/services to their own servers/environments whenever possible) - More difficult (compared to Docker) to achieve a production grade setup (auto restarts etc) |
| Linux | - No cost for operating system (at least not for most Linux versions) - Runs on low cost hardware - Pre-built, standalone binaries available |
- More difficult (compared to Docker) to achieve a production grade setup (auto restarts etc) |
| Mac OS | - For development, if you want to extend or modify Butler SOS - Signed, pre-built, standalone binaries available |
- Not a server grade operating system, i.e. not for production use |
| Windows (desktop) | - For development, if you want to extend or modify Butler SOS | - Not a server grade operating system, i.e. not for production use |