Ask HN: Who operates at scale without containers?

Post by goodpoint » Tue, Mar 22, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

maxk42 wrote: post #30

tailspin2019 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in the process of moving to exactly this approach. I’ve been trying to pick the right Linux distro to base my images on. Ubuntu Server is the low effort route but a bit big to redeploy constantly. I’ve also been looking at the possibility of using Alpine Linux which feels like a better fit but a bit more tweaking needed for compatibility across cloud providers. Unikernels are also interesting but I think that mig…

Ubuntu is too heavy. Try CentOS.

Post by thinkharderdev » Tue, Mar 22, 2022, 6:34 PM UTC

lazide wrote: post #115

jffry wrote: post #64

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> Containers only give reproducible deployments, not builds I think that means containers alone are insufficient for creating reproducible builds, not that containers make reproducible builds impossible.

I believe that is correct. It’s also hard to make container builds really reproducible (even with other parts of the build being so). Some sibling comments have talked about why. Containers are to ops like C is to programming languages. Man is it useful, but boy are there footguns everywhere. Usually still better than the ops equivalent of assembly, which is what came before though - all the custom manual processes.…

Post by zomglings » Tue, Mar 22, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

Thaxll wrote: post #84

smilliken wrote: post #35

My company runs without containers. We process petabytes of data monthly, thousands of CPU cores, hundreds of different types of data pipelines running continously, etc etc. Definitely a distributed system with lots of applications and databases. We use Nix for reproducible builds and deployments. Containers only give reproducible deployments, not builds, so they would be a step down. The reason that's important is t…

The thing is, you spent probably a lot of time on things that were granted elsewhere and while the rest of the world is improving on those tech you keep your home grown solution that is harder and harder to maintain. Plus the knowledge that is not transferable. > Containers only give reproducible deployments, not builds, so they would be a step down. This is not true, if you use a docker image A with specific version…

Post by mateuszf » Tue, Mar 22, 2022, 6:36 PM UTC

tra3 wrote: post #148

tharne wrote: post #89

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> What works for us is to do the simplest thing that works, then iterate. The older I get, the more often I'm reminded that this un-sexy approach is really the best way to go. When I was younger, I always thought the old guys pushing boring solutions just didn't want to learn new things. Now I'm starting to realize that after several decades of experience, they simply got burned enough times to learn a thing or two h…

Choose boring technology [0]. For me, the choice is a trade off between the journey and the destination. Destination is the final objective of your project, business value or whatever. The journey is tinkering with "stuff". Depending on the project there's value and enjoyment in both. [0]: https://mcfunley.com/choose-boring-technology

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 22, 2022, 6:38 PM UTC

silviogutierrez wrote: post #50

claytonjy wrote: post #47

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is Nix a hurdle when onboarding engineers? do only a few people need to know the language? I've wanted to use Nix and home-manager for personal stuff but the learning curve seems big.

It's a hurdle to be able to write Nix stuff, but to consume it is pretty easy. Shameless plug here: https://www.reactivated.io/documentation/why-nix/