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Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

cloud.google.com

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Re: Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

#561

Post by _pmf_ »

rolleiflex wrote: post #58

This is awful - I don’t think GCP is fully aware of their position in the market as the second, inferior choice. I took a bet on the underdog by using GCP and they bit me back in return. Especially considering their ‘default’ kubernetes config automatically sets you up with three(!) control planes in replication, that’s, as far as I understand, $~300 added to our monthly bill, for nothing. Oh, and per their docs, thr…

> I took a bet on the underdog by using GCP

That's a concerning take on business decisions on two levels.

Re: Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

#562

Post by nojvek »

The email definitely scared me and put a sour taste in my mouth. Sudden fee changes with somewhat vague details aren’t a great way to build trust.

Especially when GCP doesn’t have a great rep like Azure and AWS.

To clarify, this is hourly charge per entire cluster right ? If it’s a small cost, ~100/month, why can’t GCP absorb it. Digital ocean, which is a smaller player has much simpler and saner pricing.

AFAIK GCP has higher compute pricing for similar instances compared to AWS. (Last I checked). How is this a good deal for the customers ?

Re: Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

#563

Post by nojvek »

jfrankamp wrote: post #427

This strikes me as an attribution problem e.g. Within large companies business units are treated as standalone financial entities so you are either making money or a cost center. I think what could be happening here is that the kubernetes group is generating what look like un-paid-for costs, instead of being back-credited for ALL of the compute they are selling via the worker VMs. I would argue that people come to GC…

Well then this is perhaps a big failure by the execs at GCP. It’s making the individual teams look good at the cost of unhappy customers.

Sometimes I think Google has phenomenal engineers, they have this massive ad cash cow from search, YouTube etc. However when it comes to business units that need to handhold their customers and need human interaction, they are pretty terrible at it. Empathy is perhaps a skill that’s not important to them when they are hiring.

Re: Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

#564

Post by toyg »

throwaway_5726 wrote: post #524
thockingoog wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the main value of GKE over DIY is $73, you should totally DIY. I mostly try not to be too Google-focused here, but I have to say... I'm pretty proud of GKE, and I think it offers a lot of value other than just being cheap. Managing clusters is not always easy. GKE handles all of that for you - including integrations, qualifications, upgrades, and patching clusters transparently BEFORE public security disclosures h…

It's not about whether it's worth it. I have no idea if $73/mo/cluster is more or less than what GKE is worth, but you can't ignore the time-varying aspect of this change. If GCP had started at $100/mo and just announced a price drop to $73/mo, your customers would probably be cheering, even though you'd be charging them the same! They'd be happy about being loyal to you, thankful that your offering gets better over…

> Now doesn't seem like the time to pull unit margins up.

Tbf, you don't have the data to say that. Maybe GCP hit the growth targets they had and are not interested in growing more; maybe they've grown so much that service quality is going down; maybe they want to stall and build up other parts of the offer... there are a lot of reasons why they might want to cash in. Whether they could have foreseen it happening at this specific point in time, and how they managed the communication, is another matter. As others said, Google is saddled by default with a perception of commercial unreliability among the tech-savvy, so any new service they launch should factor that issue in terms of long-term optics.

Re: Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

#565

Post by nojvek »

thockingoog wrote: post #206
jerendy92 wrote: post #8

Time to dump GCP then. It's not even that the fee is that large, but rather that this is once again Google failing on a long term commitment and shafting those on their platform once again. This was one of the benefits that was pushed by their sales team when they called us up to market GCP over AWS and their EKS offering. Doesn't matter that they are price matching, Google's inability to actually commit to long term…

If the main value of GKE over DIY is $73, you should totally DIY. I mostly try not to be too Google-focused here, but I have to say... I'm pretty proud of GKE, and I think it offers a lot of value other than just being cheap. Managing clusters is not always easy. GKE handles all of that for you - including integrations, qualifications, upgrades, and patching clusters transparently BEFORE public security disclosures h…

The problem is you are charging more without providing a clear case that the value is worth it. It looks like a bad deal from an existing customers view point.

73/month is not a lot, but it’s still turning back on the original value proposition. If it’s such a small amount, absorb the cost as cost of doing business, so you can retain customers better and grow new ones.

Re: Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

#566

Post by Fiahil »

rolleiflex wrote: post #58

This is awful - I don’t think GCP is fully aware of their position in the market as the second, inferior choice. I took a bet on the underdog by using GCP and they bit me back in return. Especially considering their ‘default’ kubernetes config automatically sets you up with three(!) control planes in replication, that’s, as far as I understand, $~300 added to our monthly bill, for nothing. Oh, and per their docs, thr…

> I don’t think GCP is fully aware of their position in the market as the second, inferior choice.

I'm sorry, but first choice is AWS, second is Azure (mostly because retailers don't like AWS), and third is actually GCP.

Re: Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

#567

Post by Aethelwulf »

Glyptodon wrote: post #540
ones_and_zeros wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree the rollout is a little bumpy but I'm curious what workloads you are using k8s for where a $74/mo (or $300/mo) bill isn't a rounding error in your capex?

My boss viewed it as the main way to deploy containerized systems offered by cloud providers and figured we could run most of our internal only things in it for a couple hundred a month - we don't really need the guarantees and scale, and he saw it as a way to avoid creating excess numbers of dedicated VMs, as cloud run isn't sufficient for our non-static stuff. This view up until now has actually been quite accurate…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Mesos

Re: Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

#568

Post by nostrebored »

Glyptodon wrote: post #547
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what size a "very small company" size is, but I'm just curious as to why you chose GKE. I make tech decisions for a (probably) much smaller company, and I found things like App Engine Flexible Environment, Cloud Run and Cloud Functions let me do much of the stuff I can do with k8s but with much, much less complexity (at least on my side of things). The main factor is that I don't have a full-time infrastruct…

So let's say you have a small pile of apps that are all , , , , , but not all the same DB, language, etc. They're all low traffic and you want to automate/simplify and containerize them. On developer machines docker compose works great, but you need to deploy in a cloud provider. What are choice do you have other than K8s?

AWS Lambda with SAM local?

Re: Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

#569

Post by p_l »

jmb12686 wrote: post #492
apple4ever wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think our architects’ heads would explode if they were told we should treat them like cattle. For us, Clusters are a promise to our developers. We can’t just spin up a new cluster because we feel like it. I must be missing something or maybe our culture is just different.

As an architect, I am currently working on our org's first cloud deployment initiative. Due to federal compliance / regulations, we have no write access in higher / production boundaries, and everything is automated via deployment jobs, IaC, etc. Given the experience of the teams involved, I took the opportunity (burden) of writing nearly all the automation. If your architects can't handle shooting sick cattle in pro…

That only means that the "named system" moves upwards, somewhere. It doesn't mean you don't have "pets".

P.S. I consider "pet vs cattle" to be a horrible metaphor that should be taken behind the barn and short like the diseased plague bearer it is.

Re: Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

#570

Post by stickfigure »

Glyptodon wrote: post #541
dahfizz wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then manage k8s yourself. Or, better yet, don't use k8s. You don't need it, especially as a startup on a shoestring budget. You can migrate later if you decide you really need to, but just a plain LAMP gets you 99% of the way.

If there were a lower complexity way to deploy containerized apps supported widely I think tons of people would go for it. Currently there's not really much of a middle ground between Cloud Run and K8s offered. It's kind of absurd, honestly.

Google App Engine has been exactly this since 2008.
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