Ask HN: Do I need AWS? Or am I thinking this wrong? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Do I need AWS? Or am I thinking this wrong?

#21

Post by shrubble » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 4:36 AM UTC

dangus wrote: post #9

There's nothing wrong with feeling this way, but you're comparing a very small company (your own) to a much larger corporation. The appeal of AWS' "insane" bills are that they are not so "insane" when compared to the salaries required to maintain a home grown stack in-house, especially as complexity increases. It's not just application complexity, it's organizational complexity. Doing everything yourself is fine unti…

In the mid-1990s a large ISP I am aware of, rented "pizzabox" and larger Sun SPARC systems (like SPARCstation 2s; but even the larger systems ran the same OS) to corporate clients.

The team of 5 sysadmins setup, installed, secured and managed 2000 such systems, mostly running SunOS 4.1.x , which didn't have nearly the automation that we have now on newer Unix based OSes.

Using only the bash shell and the many scripts they wrote for managing them. Guess the profitability of that kind of setup? 1 sysadmin per 400 systems... the kind of overhead people think exists, doesn't.

Re: Ask HN: Do I need AWS? Or am I thinking this wrong?

#22

Post by shrubble » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 4:38 AM UTC

You have it figured out.

If you are worried about redundancy, get a second server at a different company with the server in a different part of the country, and back up to it every hour (incremental backups) with a full backup every night, or whatnot.

Re: Ask HN: Do I need AWS? Or am I thinking this wrong?

#23

Post by alex_lav » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 4:57 AM UTC

What do you think would be more beneficial to your company in the short and medium term?

Re: Ask HN: Do I need AWS? Or am I thinking this wrong?

#24

Post by wholesomepotato » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 5:18 AM UTC

It's good, don't touch it. If you need AWS you'll know.

A low complexity org with low complexity tech stack (both good things) can serve a ton users, and don't have much benefit from huge scale, elasticity and features of AWS.

In particular network transfer fees on AWS are ridiculous, IMO.

Re: Ask HN: Do I need AWS? Or am I thinking this wrong?

#25

Post by syndicatedjelly » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 5:25 AM UTC

Supply5411 wrote: post #18

fragmede wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a lifestyle business that's never going to grow into needing enterprise offerings, IAM is overkill. Like K8 would be for HN or other simple web forum.

I disagree. IAM is like having a house with doors that lock. It doesn't matter how big or small your house is, you're going to want the ability to restrict who can go where and do what. It's part of basic security. If they're not doing that, and their 1 server is talking to AWS resources, it means its using superadmin credentials. If that 1 server is compromised, can you see why that would be a bad idea?

But does not using IAM mean that they are not doing anything to handle credentials securely?

Re: Ask HN: Do I need AWS? Or am I thinking this wrong?

#26

Post by shrubble » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 6:00 AM UTC

Supply5411 wrote: post #7

>I'm also enjoying staying sane avoiding IAM. This sticks out to me. IAM isn't crazy, and having access controls in place is going to be the very first thing you want to do when you bring someone else on board. Maybe you're not there yet, but it would be a wise time investment to understand how these work, to the point where they don't feel confusing.

You can restrict different services to different users, or if using containers, give access based on which container. IAM is not the only way to have shared, controlled access.

Re: Ask HN: Do I need AWS? Or am I thinking this wrong?

#27

Post by tommek4077 » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 6:03 AM UTC

dangus wrote: post #12

movedx wrote: post #4

> I'm keeping things simple, so I've got mostly Go services, pg + caching, and a svelte webapp. I deployed my Go services on a low-ish end bare metal provider, and for now it is fine. Deployments are triggered via scripts, and so far so good. Is it sexy, using all the latest and greatest tech? No, its just simple shell scripts. But it works? Don't change a thing. This is perfect. > Am I wrong to think that I could pr…

One thing I would point out is that the simplicity of StackOverflow's hardware stack means that it would also be very simple to host in a cloud provider like AWS. I would also point out that StackOverflow isn't an incredibly good performer compared to a number of other websites. Check it out on PageSpeed Insights. I also used a couple other tools that suggest that it loads slower in some regions than others.

I would not give much on those gambled page speed analysis. It comes down to: is ist fast enough? The answer clearly was yes during all those years for the users.

Re: Ask HN: Do I need AWS? Or am I thinking this wrong?

#28

Post by sebazzz » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 6:04 AM UTC

dangus wrote: post #12

movedx wrote: post #4

> I'm keeping things simple, so I've got mostly Go services, pg + caching, and a svelte webapp. I deployed my Go services on a low-ish end bare metal provider, and for now it is fine. Deployments are triggered via scripts, and so far so good. Is it sexy, using all the latest and greatest tech? No, its just simple shell scripts. But it works? Don't change a thing. This is perfect. > Am I wrong to think that I could pr…

One thing I would point out is that the simplicity of StackOverflow's hardware stack means that it would also be very simple to host in a cloud provider like AWS. I would also point out that StackOverflow isn't an incredibly good performer compared to a number of other websites. Check it out on PageSpeed Insights. I also used a couple other tools that suggest that it loads slower in some regions than others.

> One thing I would point out is that the simplicity of StackOverflow's hardware stack means that it would also be very simple to host in a cloud provider like AWS.

Yes, of course. Every cloud provider also does PaaS, but often it is also not the most cost effective option - often it is the most expensive one!

The cheapest option is often the option where toy get reliant on cloud-specific sdks, serverless, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Do I need AWS? Or am I thinking this wrong?

#29

Post by subhro » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 6:04 AM UTC

Probably unpopular opinion here, but my policy is,

If I can choose to not pay rent, I will choose to not pay rent.

Re: Ask HN: Do I need AWS? Or am I thinking this wrong?

#30

Post by Scarbutt » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 6:10 AM UTC

dangus wrote: post #12

movedx wrote: post #4

> I'm keeping things simple, so I've got mostly Go services, pg + caching, and a svelte webapp. I deployed my Go services on a low-ish end bare metal provider, and for now it is fine. Deployments are triggered via scripts, and so far so good. Is it sexy, using all the latest and greatest tech? No, its just simple shell scripts. But it works? Don't change a thing. This is perfect. > Am I wrong to think that I could pr…

One thing I would point out is that the simplicity of StackOverflow's hardware stack means that it would also be very simple to host in a cloud provider like AWS. I would also point out that StackOverflow isn't an incredibly good performer compared to a number of other websites. Check it out on PageSpeed Insights. I also used a couple other tools that suggest that it loads slower in some regions than others.

This. AWS can be as simple or complex as you want it to be.