Snap commits $2B over 5 years for Google Cloud infrastructure • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by forgetsusername » Fri, Feb 03, 2017, 10:00 AM UTC

origami777 wrote: post #151

hamandcheese wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's assuming that: - GCP will always have a margin that high - Snapchat is paying the advertised rate - They can find the requisite talent in a reasonable timeframe

Bingo. They aren't paying advertised rates. Google will have margin but not as much as usual. Snap also has google by the balls here. What if snap comes out with a statement saying Gcp sucks and they're moving to aws?

>Snap also has google by the balls here.

Surely they don't.

>What if snap comes out with a statement saying Gcp sucks and they're moving to aws?

Then we question why Snap committed billions of dollars to infrastructure that "sucks", and wonder why they couldn't figure it out, but Google could.

You think people will take Snap more seriously than Google itself?

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

#212

Post by luckystartup » Fri, Feb 03, 2017, 10:03 AM UTC

unixhero wrote: post #174

kevindong wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. Like Whatsapp, server has to store the message until the receiver is online again (until they open the app). The server actually has to store it for a maximum of 30 days [0]. Snaps get deleted after 30 days (even if they're unopened). They're deleted immediately once the Snapchat servers get confirmation they've been viewed. [0]: https://www.snap.com/en-US/news/post/how-snaps-are-stored-an...

Do you really believe that.

Sure, why not? They might work with the FBI to store data for specific targets, and the NSA probably intercepts and copies a lot of data onto their own servers, but I see no reason why the company itself would lie about this. They probably do delete the data immediately for the vast majority of their users.

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

#213

Post by acchow » Fri, Feb 03, 2017, 10:06 AM UTC

the_duke wrote: post #207

treblig wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, agreed. Snap only has 1900 employees.

Where did you come up with that? Crunchbase says they have 100-250 employees. Their LinkedIn profile says 50-200.

It's in their S-1 filing

"1,859 as of December 31, 2016"

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1564408/000119312517...

I hope you don't rely on Crunchbase or LinkedIn for anything serious.

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

#214

Post by luckystartup » Fri, Feb 03, 2017, 10:10 AM UTC

_m8fo wrote: post #139

What's the back-end equivalent of "free scaling?" For example, with the front-end, if you have a SPA or a website that's completely static, you can serve static files and JavaScript in a way that scales horizontally for free. Is there a back-end designed (with compromises and all) in a way where scaling horizontally is free, at the expense of compute power or some other sacrifice? I want to say Erlang/Elixir, but I h…

Most server backends can easily scale horizontally, including Ruby on Rails, Node.js, and Elixir. The only requirement is that you don't keep any "state" in your server code. A novice programmer can make this mistake in any language, including Elixir.

Read about the "Twelve-Factor App": https://12factor.net/

The main bottleneck is usually your database, which can be tricky to scale. You set up things like read slaves and sharding.

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

#215

Post by andybak » Fri, Feb 03, 2017, 10:17 AM UTC

vincnetas wrote: post #204

joeyspn wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On HN nobody knows if you're a dog, or if you run infrastructure at Facebook...

Or a dog running infrastructure on FB ;)

That's unfair. From what I can tell all the canines are on the mobile app development team.

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

#216

Post by andybak » Fri, Feb 03, 2017, 10:19 AM UTC

krzyk wrote: post #168

For ones (like me) wondering what Snap is, it is the company behind Snapchat, they apparently changed their name few months ago (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snap_Inc. )

Thank you. I was wondering the same.

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

#217

Post by yAnonymous » Fri, Feb 03, 2017, 10:36 AM UTC

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…

When Google eventually buy Snap, it's better for them to already manage the infrastructure.

Then everyone can honestly announce that Snap user data won't be handed over to Google - because it's already there. ;)

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

#218

Post by abalone » Fri, Feb 03, 2017, 10:37 AM UTC

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…

> 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.

It doesn't mean they won't. Apple is reportedly spending a similar amount on Google cloud.[1] They're also investing billions in building their own data centers.[2] Those things go together.

Do you really think a company facing literally hundreds of millions of dollars in cloud service bills is not going to run the numbers on plugging in their own servers.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/google-nabs-apple-as-a-cloud-...

[2] http://fortune.com/2016/02/02/apple-data-center-move/

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

#219

Post by robzyb » Fri, Feb 03, 2017, 10:41 AM UTC

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…

> 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 eliminating it.

If they ran on bare metal then they'd list that as one of their big risk factors too.

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

#220

Post by kartickv » Fri, Feb 03, 2017, 10:42 AM UTC

It seems dangerous to commit to spending so much money for so long into the future, with a particular vendor. Who knows whether Google Cloud will be best for your needs four years from now? Price, performance, reliability, support, whether it will have best-in-class abstractions, and so on...