Heroku Architecture

Dynos, deployment environments, GitHub→Heroku pipeline, Postgres and Redis add-ons

Shared Model (SaaS)

Heroku is the hosting platform for the Shared Model. The Enterprise Model runs on dedicated AWS infrastructure — see Deployment Models.

Deployment Environments

The SSM.ro platform operates three distinct environments:

Environment	URL	Access	Data
Production	`https://www.appssm.ro`	Public — HTTPS (TLS 1.2+)	Real production data
Staging	Internal — not publicly exposed	Restricted — HTTP Basic Auth at the edge; credentials issued only to authorized staff	Test data only — never production/customer data
Development	Local (developer workstation)	Developer's local network only — not exposed to the internet	Local test data

Staging never contains production or customer data.

Heroku Components

Web Dynos

Host the web application
Autoscaling configured
Authentication: username + password; optional TOTP 2FA (code from an authenticator app or sent by email); per-organization OIDC SSO (optional or exclusive)
Session timeout: 30 minutes of inactivity; with the “remember me” option the session does not expire through inactivity for 2 weeks

Worker Dynos (Asynchronous Jobs)

Asynchronous job processing
Responsibilities: document signing orchestration, notification sending, daily archive export, scheduled tasks
Job queue based on Heroku Redis

Heroku Postgres (Managed)

Main relational database, on the Heroku Postgres Standard plan
TLS in transit, encryption at rest
Continuous Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR) (WAL) + daily snapshots with 30-day retention
Hosts the customer activity log table (3-month retention, downloadable by tenant)
Continuous Protection enabled — allows rollback to a specific point in time

Heroku Redis (Managed)

Application cache + asynchronous job queue
TLS in transit
Private within the Heroku network (not accessible from outside)

Build & Release Pipeline

Developer → Pull Request on GitHub
    │ mandatory review (branch protection on main)
    ▼
Merge into main branch
    │ webhook automatically triggered
    ▼
Heroku Build
    buildpack runs → produces release artifact (slug)
    │
    ▼
Heroku Release
    rolling restart of web dynos + worker dynos
    │
    ▼
Versioned release with audit log in Heroku Releases
    │ one-click rollback available

Critical patches follow the same flow on an expedited schedule.

Postgres Backups — Retention Limits

The platform uses the Heroku Postgres Standard plan, which retains up to 25 manual backups.

In addition to manual backups, PITR (Continuous Protection) is active: every change is backed up continuously, allowing restoration to any point within the last few days.

Cross-Cutting Heroku Controls

All inbound traffic: HTTPS/TLS 1.2+ via Heroku Router with Let's Encrypt wildcard certificates (managed by the technical support team)
Internal traffic (App ↔ Postgres/Redis): private Heroku network, TLS in transit
Secrets: stored exclusively in Heroku config vars — never in source code
Versioned releases with audit log and rollback available

Heroku Architecture

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