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Snap commits $2B over 5 years for Google Cloud infrastructure

techcrunch.com

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Re: Snap commits $2B over 5 years for Google Cloud infrastructure

#61

Post by nikcub »

randartie wrote: post #50

Needing this amount of resources implies that Snap is expecting huge growth. This sounds like a really bad move on their part and they should have committed to building out their own infrastructure on 'bare metal' over the next 5 years instead. If you read their S-1, they list a dependence on Google cloud as one of their big risk factors. Yet they then go ahead and make this commitment instead of working towards elim…

There is nothing about using cloud services that makes this a unique risk factor. With self-hosting replace "Google" with the companies own name and list all the things that can go wrong - it's pretty standard for a tech co. S1.

For ex. this is Twitter's risk item for running hosted services:

> Our business and operating results may be harmed by a disruption in our service, or by our failure to timely and effectively scale and adapt our existing technology and infrastructure

Continues bottom of page 26[0]

[0] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312513...

Re: Snap commits $2B over 5 years for Google Cloud infrastructure

#62

Post by throwaway2048 »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #32
toomuchtodo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why opt for Google if you're going to use containers in Kubernetes? You then become cloud agnostic. You can even move to your own datacenter at some point (relatively) easily. Dropbox built out their own environment (and did it migrating 500PB out of S3) [1] [1a]. As did Twitter [2]. And Facebook [3]. And GitLab [4] (too soon?) As well as Mixpanel [5]. Even Twilio is multi-cloud (last time I checked it was split betw…

Easily move? It seems to me that you have no serious experience in the real world. There's something called "data gravity", and the non-secondary issue of how to migrate a "live" system (in production) from one cloud to another over the course of typically several weeks. Moving from one cloud to another, even with containers, is never easy at large scale. (source: I have worked at AWS for 6 years, at VMware for 2, an…

"never easy" means something entirely different when you are spending billions of dollars on something.

Re: Snap commits $2B over 5 years for Google Cloud infrastructure

#63

Post by hadfgdasf »

amluto wrote: post #57
teej wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine bandwidth is a major cost center.

Last time I checked, Google and AWS both had very, very high egress prices. At these levels, it's far cheaper to connect to a Tier 1 provider or three.

Did you check what their price was at the $2B purchase volume?

Re: Snap commits $2B over 5 years for Google Cloud infrastructure

#64

Post by averageweather »

paulddraper wrote: post #54
randartie wrote: post #50

Needing this amount of resources implies that Snap is expecting huge growth. This sounds like a really bad move on their part and they should have committed to building out their own infrastructure on 'bare metal' over the next 5 years instead. If you read their S-1, they list a dependence on Google cloud as one of their big risk factors. Yet they then go ahead and make this commitment instead of working towards elim…

Precisely. Google Cloud is a good idea when you don't know how much infrastructure you need. Of course, maybe they got some killer promotional deal with Google. Seems likely.

How much did that sales rep get in commission? ;-)

Re: Snap commits $2B over 5 years for Google Cloud infrastructure

#65

Post by res0nat0r »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #49
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easily move? It seems to me that you have no serious experience in the real world. There's something called "data gravity", and the non-secondary issue of how to migrate a "live" system (in production) from one cloud to another over the course of typically several weeks. Moving from one cloud to another, even with containers, is never easy at large scale. (source: I have worked at AWS for 6 years, at VMware for 2, an…

I consider 'toomuchtodo a voice of authority on operations based on much reading and discussion (particularly on moving to physical, which we've discussed before), have performed the very exercise being discussed four times in my own career ranging from a couple cabinets to a couple hundred million in capital, completely agree with the entire comment to which you are replying, and feel that your jab about "serious ex…

I also hate when people say "you should just be able to flip a button and switch cloud providers or regions or you're doing it wrong."

That shows about as much of a lack of real world experience as you are bemoaning. It doesn't work that way in real life.

Re: Snap commits $2B over 5 years for Google Cloud infrastructure

#67

Post by X-Istence »

asperous wrote: post #43
andrenotgiant wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Techcrunch read: We have committed to spend $2 billion with Google Cloud over the next five years and decided "that's $2B/5=$400M per year." In reality, it's probably more like $200M, $300M, $400M, $500M, $600M

The filing says: > On January 30, 2017, we entered into the Google Cloud Platform License Agreement. Under the agreement, we were granted a license to access and use certain cloud services. The agreement has an initial term of five years and we are required to purchase at least $400.0 million of cloud services in each year of the agreement, though for each of the first four years, up to 15% of this amount may be move…

> If we fail to meet the minimum purchase commitment during any year, we are required to pay the difference.

Being frugal until you hit the $400MM doesn't matter anymore...

Re: Snap commits $2B over 5 years for Google Cloud infrastructure

#68

Post by ashayh »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #22
whalesalad wrote: post #2

If I could do it all over again I would probably opt for Google. The Kubernetes support is wonderful and the overall user experience blows AWS out of the water.

Why opt for Google if you're going to use containers in Kubernetes? You then become cloud agnostic. You can even move to your own datacenter at some point (relatively) easily. Dropbox built out their own environment (and did it migrating 500PB out of S3) [1] [1a]. As did Twitter [2]. And Facebook [3]. And GitLab [4] (too soon?) As well as Mixpanel [5]. Even Twilio is multi-cloud (last time I checked it was split betw…

Whether you want to run fully in the cloud, or homegrown DCs or a combination, you need talented people who bring the required savings about.

When it comes to in house DCs, very few companies seem to have that top talent.

For example, most companies are simply buying regular Dell/HP servers, Cisco switches/routers, slapping them in cabinets and calling it a day. They simply do not know how to take advantage of high density platforms like open compute, or of SDN. They also throw millions at software vendors like Vmware/CA, instead of building their own provisioning or CPU/RAM/Disk aggregating solutions with open source or custom tools.

If they don't know how to do it, then the theoretical savings for certain companies, of bringing things in-house simply won't materialize. And then its better to throw money at AWS if your in-house "engineers" are also breaking things 10x more often.

In a company with a badly run DC, developers very quickly latch on to cloud benefits like not having to wait for 3 days for DNS request, and 2 weeks for a VM.

Re: Snap commits $2B over 5 years for Google Cloud infrastructure

#69

Post by Alex3917 »

randartie wrote: post #50

Needing this amount of resources implies that Snap is expecting huge growth. This sounds like a really bad move on their part and they should have committed to building out their own infrastructure on 'bare metal' over the next 5 years instead. If you read their S-1, they list a dependence on Google cloud as one of their big risk factors. Yet they then go ahead and make this commitment instead of working towards elim…

> Needing this amount of resources implies that Snap is expecting huge growth.

It's a hedge. If they don't grow as rapidly as expected then they're betting that someone else will buy the excess reserved capacity from them for close to market rates. So in the case that they only use 1.5 billion dollars worth of hosting, they're betting that they'll be out, say, $25M rather than $500M. On the other hand they want to make sure that if they do grow rapidly then Google has the capacity to meet their needs.

Re: Snap commits $2B over 5 years for Google Cloud infrastructure

#70

Post by nikcub »

Yodoshi wrote: post #28
toomuchtodo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why opt for Google if you're going to use containers in Kubernetes? You then become cloud agnostic. You can even move to your own datacenter at some point (relatively) easily. Dropbox built out their own environment (and did it migrating 500PB out of S3) [1] [1a]. As did Twitter [2]. And Facebook [3]. And GitLab [4] (too soon?) As well as Mixpanel [5]. Even Twilio is multi-cloud (last time I checked it was split betw…

Because of google container engine (hosted kubernetes). https://cloud.google.com/container-engine/ Also them starting the project along with the knowledge they have internally scaling containers helps.

Can anyone here provide some info or make a comparison with the Azure Container Service here, or any AWS option?

I'm going to go through all of the service offerings this weekend - from Docker Inc's Docker for Azure and Docker for AWS to the native container services on each.

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