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Migrating Dropbox from Nginx to Envoy

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Re: Migrating Dropbox from Nginx to Envoy

#161

Post by ClumsyPilot »

mehrdada wrote: post #146
pjmlp wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When supermarkets and landlords start accepting them, then yes.

Could it be that OSS is simply not a sustainable business model for the long haul and it was simply successful in a period of history when vast money was made quickly by landgrab expansion of technology to consolidate/provide many basic services and the code itself wasn’t the competitive differentiator? I don’t know but that’s a possibility too. I question why one would be concerned in keeping OSS alive, as a busines…

>> "There’s no inherent reason OSS should somehow forcefully live"

What on earth does this tirade even mean? Every business lives 'forcefully' and fights for survival. Sometimes it comes with values, i.e. we dont use child labour in DRK to mine thallium, fairtrade, organic, etc. OSS is one of those values.

Is there a business that lives 'effortlessly'?

Re: Migrating Dropbox from Nginx to Envoy

#162

Post by pjmlp »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #161
mehrdada wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it be that OSS is simply not a sustainable business model for the long haul and it was simply successful in a period of history when vast money was made quickly by landgrab expansion of technology to consolidate/provide many basic services and the code itself wasn’t the competitive differentiator? I don’t know but that’s a possibility too. I question why one would be concerned in keeping OSS alive, as a busines…

>> "There’s no inherent reason OSS should somehow forcefully live" What on earth does this tirade even mean? Every business lives 'forcefully' and fights for survival. Sometimes it comes with values, i.e. we dont use child labour in DRK to mine thallium, fairtrade, organic, etc. OSS is one of those values. Is there a business that lives 'effortlessly'?

FOSS doesn't have anything to do with values, or do you refuse FOSS software tainted by corporation's contributions that don't share your values?

Because then it is going to be a very thin selection available.

Re: Migrating Dropbox from Nginx to Envoy

#164

Post by eric4smith »

mholt wrote: post #110
eric4smith wrote: post #104

It's interesting almost no web server provides an easy way to deal with multi-tenant multi-domain architectures in a good way that includes automatic SSL. Caddy is the closest, but still not near enough. There is this small segment of the market that we operate in that requires thousands of TLS connected domains to be hosted behind a dynamic backend. It's services like Tumblr, Wordpress.com, or any other hosting serv…

Several companies use Caddy for exactly this purpose. Fathom Analytics for example uses it for their custom domains feature. Caddy can even reactively provision certs during TLS handshakes. It's a native feature. Why does it require lots of workarounds?

Yes. Caddy is what we use, since not much else can do it as easily as Caddy can. And it's our go-to tool for several projects that require custom domains. And we really, really, appreciate it!

I'm just saying that it's not something that is documented well or purpose built for that scenario.

Re: Migrating Dropbox from Nginx to Envoy

#165

Post by eric4smith »

e12e wrote: post #111
eric4smith wrote: post #104

It's interesting almost no web server provides an easy way to deal with multi-tenant multi-domain architectures in a good way that includes automatic SSL. Caddy is the closest, but still not near enough. There is this small segment of the market that we operate in that requires thousands of TLS connected domains to be hosted behind a dynamic backend. It's services like Tumblr, Wordpress.com, or any other hosting serv…

Traefik makes it fairly easy (inasmuch as it makes anything easy). But it's just a proxy, not a web server.

Traefik can work yes - documentation is really terrible though for anything approaching that use case. We had to really futz around with it and eventually went back to Caddy. Our use case is several thousand client domains that just proxy to some backends.

Re: Migrating Dropbox from Nginx to Envoy

#166

Post by traceroute66 »

SaveTheRbtz wrote: post #38
user5994461 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, a single server doesn't really need to do more than 10Gbps or 100k connections. Going above is a "simple" matter of managing horizontal scaling. What I wonder about is how do you distribute the traffic on the higher level? I imagine there are separate clusters of envoys to serve different configurations/applications/locations? How many datacenters does dropbox have? I was running a comparable setup in a large c…

We had a large rundown of our Traffic Infrastructure some time ago[1]. TL;DR is: * First level of loadbalancing is DNS[2]. here we try to map user to a closest PoP based on metrics from our clients. * User to a PoP path after that mostly depends on our BGP peering with other ISPs (we have an open peering policy[3], please peer with us!) * Within the PoP we use BGP ECMP and a set of L4 loadbalancers (previously IPVS,…

@SaveTheRbtz

"we have an open peering policy"

That's a bit of a lie given you have a minimum 50Mbps requirement before you even consider a peering request.

I would call that Selective, not Open !

Re: Migrating Dropbox from Nginx to Envoy

#167

Post by boris »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #101
e40 wrote: post #40

Also note that we’ll cover the open source version of the Nginx, not its commercial version with additional features. It always kills me when very successful companies don't buy software from other companies. I remember being at a lunch with a prospective client that really loved our technology. About 1/2 way through, he said he really would love to purchase our software, but the CEO doesn't allow them to use anythin…

In a business context, I'd definitely consider paid support for an Open Source product. But I'm not interested in a proprietary version that I can't modify or get third-party support for or otherwise work with in a pinch; I'm certainly not going to make a business dependent on it. Push the proprietary version hard enough and I'll reconsider whether I even want to use the Open Source version, or if it might be on more…

What if it were a single source-available version (that also allowed you to, say, get third-party support/customizations)?

Re: Migrating Dropbox from Nginx to Envoy

#168

Post by tinganho »

e40 wrote: post #40

Also note that we’ll cover the open source version of the Nginx, not its commercial version with additional features. It always kills me when very successful companies don't buy software from other companies. I remember being at a lunch with a prospective client that really loved our technology. About 1/2 way through, he said he really would love to purchase our software, but the CEO doesn't allow them to use anythin…

I fully agree. One other good point with paid software is that is more long term. It will be supported as long as there is money involved.

Just look at the JS ecosystem. Everything is for free. But also shitloads of crap. A lot of libraries left unmaintained.

Re: Migrating Dropbox from Nginx to Envoy

#169

Post by nicoburns »

pjmlp wrote: post #100
mehrdada wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not infer that from the OP’s comment, but in any case, I don’t know the specifics of their arrangement or whether they had been a commercial customer or not. Last time I checked Nginx had been doing fine selling itself for half a billion. But more abstractly, I don’t actually agree with that sentiment. I see more of a responsibility to give back in the form of patches and collaboration than throwing $ at the pr…

All fine and dandy, except that those patches and collaboration don't pay bills.

Often big companies employ people directly to work on open source projects that they use heavily. That does pay the bills.

Re: Migrating Dropbox from Nginx to Envoy

#170

Post by wwright »

rebelnz wrote: post #66
mehrdada wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it blow your mind? Various obvious and sane reasons for this, including cost. I bet many of those companies you have in mind “buy” Windows and macOS, and if they are sufficiently big, most certainly buy Oracle or SAP for their corporate operations, finances, and accounting. It’s usually only the production side of sufficiently large internet-scale companies that is biased towards building. Most of the time y…

I think the point was a financially successful company not contributing to an open source project even after making a bunch of money just seems un-ethical? Maybe I'm old-school but I still think we should be supporting each other in this type of situation especially if one of us strikes it big? Sure - move away from Nginx but maybe throw some $ their way for the service they provided even if you don't legally have to…

For what’s it worth, many companies have a hard time justifying “unnecessary” expenses to their boards or shareholders. Depending on company structure, their hands may be somewhat tied.

Not all companies, of course; and to be clear, I think such a company structure is a problem itself and agree with you.

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