why they are not capable enough to move for that?
Google and IBM still trying desperately to move cloud market share needle
211–220 of 256 posts
Re: Google and IBM still trying desperately to move cloud market share needle
#212Lots of commenters here failing to recognize how much competition within consumer vertical plays here.
For years AWS was the cloud, and the only viable option.
At the same time that traditionally non-technical (or at least not tech-first) companies are coming around to the idea of moving to the cloud, there are alternatives for the first time ever.
Amazon is now a major player in ecommerce, perishable/grocery and digital media content (both delivery and production). Companies in those verticals are hesitant to move to AWS, some are already outright refusing. This is where the opportunity for competitors lies.
Edit: was mentioned, about 13 hours before I did https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19149933
Re: Google and IBM still trying desperately to move cloud market share needle
#213The reason for IBM's failure is pretty obvious. Their old school bare-metal servers at Softlayer are a good value, but the need for bare metal is decreasing with IO improvements like SR-IOV and real hardware level virtualization (ex HVM on AWS). I've also heard IBM is running that division into the ground. Their cloud offering sucks. Last time I was curious, I couldn't even figure out how much my server would cost. T…
"cute shitty documentation" - reading the GCP docs has been nothing but a pleasure for me. I genuinely hate most documentation (I am looking at you Microsoft), but GCP is up there in quality, almost standing next to MDN. Could you give me an example of something you had trouble looking up? I am genuinely curious. As far as experience - the Cloud hasn't lived up to the promise for me. We often use Azure function apps…
Once you need more and more advanced use-cases, I think we all eventually discover that Documentation is damn hard, and no one does it perfectly.
In Google's case, I see a few major issues constantly with their documentation.
All of their documentation is focused around "use-cases", so to speak. Finding complete API documentation is a pain in the butt for many of their services; instead, they present sections like "Here's how to do X" "Here's how to do Y". More often than not, these pages are structured like help wizards, beginning with a "pull this example repository", which is the laziest possible way to check a "write documentation" checkbox.
Barring pulling those example repositories, they often put code snippets in-line with the documentation. As far as I can tell (at least for Go), these code snippets are auto-generated from comment directives in the source code which enclose blocks to paste into the documentation. What this means is that its ALWAYS missing crucial things, like import paths. So, its basically useless; you need to look at the example code to do anything.
Overall, I'd take AWS's documentation any day, though it does have some very bad areas (specifically once you start treading out of the SDK and into service libraries, like aws-xray-sdk). No one is perfect, but AWS is the gold standard of any cloud service provider documentation I've used IMO.
Re: Google and IBM still trying desperately to move cloud market share needle
#214I don't understand why Google doesn't woo silicon valley startups more aggressively. Gcloud is actually a pretty solid service, far more usable at varying levels of technical expertise. A lot of nice integrated tools for high end users (EC2/kub8/cloud console/etc) that gives AWS a good run for their money, and (gcloud web browser, web console, gcutils) for devs not that familiar with cloud tools that are significantl…
Google has lost much of the trust developers placed in them, first of all by terminating products some of us loved [1] and also by terminating user accounts in an automated fashion with no way to appeal. Imagine your business depending on Google Play Store, then getting your account banned due to some association with another account that supposedly broke their ToS, with no way to contact support, to appeal the decis…
The people in #4 thought a recovery account was harmless. They were wrong. Google's automated systems are merciless, impersonal, and ruthless. They showcase how much faith you should put in their support for even paid services.
Re: Google and IBM still trying desperately to move cloud market share needle
#215The reason for IBM's failure is pretty obvious. Their old school bare-metal servers at Softlayer are a good value, but the need for bare metal is decreasing with IO improvements like SR-IOV and real hardware level virtualization (ex HVM on AWS). I've also heard IBM is running that division into the ground. Their cloud offering sucks. Last time I was curious, I couldn't even figure out how much my server would cost. T…
"cute shitty documentation" - reading the GCP docs has been nothing but a pleasure for me. I genuinely hate most documentation (I am looking at you Microsoft), but GCP is up there in quality, almost standing next to MDN. Could you give me an example of something you had trouble looking up? I am genuinely curious. As far as experience - the Cloud hasn't lived up to the promise for me. We often use Azure function apps…
GCP's documentation has an aesthetic quality but is lacking practicality.
Take for example a fundamental usecase: working with a blob storage service through a client library.
Googling "gcp cloud storage java example" and "s3 java example" returns these as top results:
https://cloud.google.com/java/getting-started/using-cloud-st...
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-java/v1/developer-guide/...
The AWS doc is clear and gives me exactly what I want: Java code snippets for doing common actions with buckets.
The GCP doc is about a sample bookshelf application? And it starts off by creating a bucket through a terminal command followed by a couple of massive code snippets specific to the example app?
Changing the search terms a bit reveals this:
https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/creating-buckets#stora...
That's a bit better, but seeing options for the various arguments requires me to copy and paste a non-clickable link from the code snippet, which brings me to another attractive but minimally helpful page.
Another example: renaming a bucket. I find the link easily enough..
https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/moving-buckets#storage...
But only the first code snippet has code samples of any kind. The remaining steps only have instructions for the console and terminal (and the JSON API if you want to curl against that..)
To me, GCP's documentation just doesn't surface information in a way that's conducive to getting work done quickly.
Re: Google and IBM still trying desperately to move cloud market share needle
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks, I used to do consulting so I've seen this firsthand. Many of our non-technical clients demanded Azure even when it wasn't ideal (this was years ago, before they cloned most of AWS). Why? Microsoft is known for long term support, at reasonable prices. Any business that's survived more than a decade loves them for it. We had clients running Windows 95 in VM's if that gives you an idea of how far some companies…
Yes yes, there is a WinXP PC in our department with screen covered with a white paper with large font size text "This PC is under remote operation by Structure department, Do Not Shut it down." Obviously there is a highly domain specific application for our Civil & Structural works last updated 10+ years ago. No one familiar/willing to upgrade it's internal licensing systems to work on newer Windows. So here we go. W…
For some of this stuff (Autocad, I'm looking at you...) it used to be the case that you could shell out a one-time $$$$ and get a license for v5.0 that would work for all eternity. The companies even gave you minor upgrades to support new OSes.
But since these guys have now switched to a subscription licensing model, they no longer do that, so there are scattered XP boxen around running ancient versions of various expensive software that just keeps working.
Re: Google and IBM still trying desperately to move cloud market share needle
#217The "S" In GCP stands for support.
As a former App Engine user, steer clear of Google cloud.
(And I am aware that Amazon also has what to improve in support.)
Re: Google and IBM still trying desperately to move cloud market share needle
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless your business is in direct competition with other parts of Amazon's service. It's not that businesses actually fear that Amazon will look at the data they have in AWS, but AWS props up other Amazon businesses, and who wants to help prop up their competitor?
Seeing that AWS’s largest customer is Netflix and that AWS has Prime Video, that’s not necessarily a showstopper. The tech industry is all about competitors who partner.
This isn't true in Retail. As far as I know, most of the top national retail brands in the US all use Azure or GCP as a policy over AWS.
Re: Google and IBM still trying desperately to move cloud market share needle
#219The reason for IBM's failure is pretty obvious. Their old school bare-metal servers at Softlayer are a good value, but the need for bare metal is decreasing with IO improvements like SR-IOV and real hardware level virtualization (ex HVM on AWS). I've also heard IBM is running that division into the ground. Their cloud offering sucks. Last time I was curious, I couldn't even figure out how much my server would cost. T…
How are SoftLayer bare metal servers good value? Seriously, have you even checked how old the hardware is and what they charge for it? It's a complete ripoff.
Re: Google and IBM still trying desperately to move cloud market share needle
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
> My experience is that Google services are often an order of magnitude harder to use than competitors. Huh, I think most people feel the exact opposite, especially with the comparison between AWS and GCP. GCP has lots of services that are really easy to get set up and running easily by a small Dev shop (Firebase is pretty fantastic in my opinion), while with AWS unless you have some DevOps/networking experts it's a…
> I think the biggest issue with GCP is they still don't have the "DNA" to do enterprise support at the level large companies expect, while AWS does. You nailed it. Coming from 8-years of AWS and working on GCP for the last 4, enterprise support is the BIGGEST differentiator IMO between AWS and GCP. GCP's services are usually technical advanced sooner (encryption architecture, various of compliances certification, et…
My experience, and the experience of everyone I've talked to, is that Google support is amazing if you pay for it, and nearly non-existent if you don't.