Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

datacenterdynamics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

561–570 of 573 posts

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#561

Post by nix23 »

mbesto wrote: post #544
nix23 wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I expect none of them to be faulty So you don't even test the car's, you just expect that the tire pressure is correct, tank is full? Expect that something "just" works is exactly why pilots have checklist's. Expectations are the main point for disappointments, you would never do that with software right?

> you would never do that with software right? Hilarious you used this as an analogy since software development shops are notorious for cutting corners when it comes to QA.

And that's why you have to test the software before production right? ...Hilarious indeed.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#562

Post by mbesto »

nix23 wrote: post #561
mbesto wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you would never do that with software right? Hilarious you used this as an analogy since software development shops are notorious for cutting corners when it comes to QA.

And that's why you have to test the software before production right? ...Hilarious indeed.

> you would never do that with software right?

You facetiously implied that every company fully tests software before it gets to production. Oh boy, do I have news for you...

Note the word "fully" as the variations of what gets tested is so broad, I don't even know where to start to explain this to you.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#563

Post by mbesto »

nix23 wrote: post #560
jeffbee wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point, which you seem so dedicated to avoiding, is that "in the cloud" these steps are not my problem. Inspecting a literal shipload of computers for subtle defects is a pain in the ass. Amazon does it for me. When I get on an airplane I do not personally have to run the checklists. The airline does it for me.

>The point, which you seem so dedicated to avoiding Not true the point was you pay for it (cloud), or you do it yourself (but then do it right, and not like a amateur who build's his first "gaming-pc"). And if you do it yourself you can still be very much competitive vs cloud.

> (but then do it right, and not like a amateur who build's his first "gaming-pc").

Again, still avoiding the point, but oddly enough proving the point. You assume everyone isn't an amateur and knows how to build and maintain server hardware. Furthermore, because the market doesn't have enough talent to support all of the companies that exist, consolidating this to a few vendors who do have the expertise is what makes sense (economies of scale) and is what the market already decided.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#564

Post by nix23 »

mbesto wrote: post #563
nix23 wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The point, which you seem so dedicated to avoiding Not true the point was you pay for it (cloud), or you do it yourself (but then do it right, and not like a amateur who build's his first "gaming-pc"). And if you do it yourself you can still be very much competitive vs cloud.

> (but then do it right, and not like a amateur who build's his first "gaming-pc"). Again, still avoiding the point, but oddly enough proving the point. You assume everyone isn't an amateur and knows how to build and maintain server hardware. Furthermore, because the market doesn't have enough talent to support all of the companies that exist, consolidating this to a few vendors who do have the expertise is what make…

>Again, still avoiding the point, but oddly enough proving the point.

Please read, that was my comment:

>>Not true the point was you pay for it (cloud), or you do it yourself

>You assume everyone isn't an amateur and knows how to build and maintain server hardware.

Yes that i assume, correct. Otherwise i would not call it "maintaining", is a amateur maintaining your car? Your software? If you have just amateur's handling your hardware it's probably better to pay a cloud-provider or pay a integrator todo that.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#565

Post by nix23 »

mbesto wrote: post #562
nix23 wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's why you have to test the software before production right? ...Hilarious indeed.

> you would never do that with software right? You facetiously implied that every company fully tests software before it gets to production. Oh boy, do I have news for you... Note the word "fully" as the variations of what gets tested is so broad, I don't even know where to start to explain this to you.

I never wrote "fully", but you test your software (i hope). Your just try to justify bad work-ethic.

>Oh boy, do I have news for you...

Nah it's ok, just happy that i have colleges with a much better mindset and risk-management understanding.

And i stop here, since you try to change what i really wrote.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#566

Post by kragen »

spr93 wrote: post #558
chrisseaton wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can say the same thing for hundreds of parts of a company like FedEx. For example FedEx flies Boeing jets. It's completely reliant on Boeing for parts for those jets. Presumably Boeing can charge whatever it wants. Your company is always going to be reliant on other suppliers and contracts. Unless you're planning on building your own independent country in some location that has all the natural resources you need…

Your airplane analogy is apt, but it cuts the other way. In fact, FedEx likes to buy out Boeing facilities so that they're not "completely reliant" on Boeing for anything.[1] As for the more general cloud v. on-prem debate, I usually don't like analogies, but the plane analogy is good because jets and logistics-management systems are two things that FedEx needs to handle extremely well to compete. So, what does FedEx…

This is astounding; I had no idea. Thank you for explaining the details. Do you have publicly citable sources for the information on the owning vs. leasing?

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#567

Post by kragen »

kragen wrote: post #490
dylan604 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a startup, the greatest benifit of cloud compute isn't the fact that I can scale up at the push of a button, but that I can scale DOWN at the push of a button. I want to test things on beefy systems, but I don't want to have to pay for those systems any longer than I need to use them. To me, this is the single best thing about cloud compute. Once your start up has become an established company and are so busy that…

Yeah, that's my thinking. Also as a small startup they don't benefit from confiscating your profits through price discrimination; if anything, they benefit from "investing" in you as a customer, to help you get to profitability, while remaining as addicted as possible to their services.

Dangling modifier here: I meant, "Also, when you are a small startup, they don't benefit from confiscating your profits through price discrimination."

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#568

Post by kragen »

jeffbee wrote: post #198
kragen wrote: post #19

Ultimately companies that abdicate their informatics operations like this will give their profits to their data-center operators, who will be empowered to charge them whatever price they want. Because what's their BATNA? Migrating from Azure to AWS when Microsoft doesn't want to let them? Renting your information infrastructure is a great way to reduce startup costs, but down the road, that information infrastructure…

That’s an incredibly silly take. Our whole economy is based on specialization. FedEx will never be as good at running datacenter as Amazon or Google. There’s room in the system for the cloud operator to earn a profit while still offering the product at a lower cost than anyone else can achieve in-house. Apple fairly notoriously hosts iCloud in other company’s clouds, and they’re a computer hardware and software compa…

While my take may be incredibly silly, jwb, it is a different take than the one you're arguing against, and in some sense diametrically opposed.

My argument is not that specialization in informatics operations is unprofitable; rather, it's that specialization in informatics operations is indispensable for maintaining the negotiating position required to earn a profit. I'm not arguing that there isn't room in the system for the cloud operator to earn a profit; I'm arguing that after committing themselves completely and irrevocably to cloud operators, FedEx will no longer be allowed to earn a profit, or rather, just enough profit to keep their stock price from collapsing.

Now, it may be that the advantage of specializing in informatics is so powerful that this situation is unavoidable, and the only viable option for companies like FedEx is to become, in a sense, franchises of Amazon, Microsoft, Google, or Baidu. You remember when this happened to companies like Intergraph in the 01990s: they were reduced to undifferentiated Microsoft resellers. And it's not clear they really had another option. I'm not confident that the situation is currently so extreme, but maybe it is.

As other commenters have noted, you were pretty comprehensively wrong about iCloud, but that's a minor supporting point.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#569

Post by kragen »

eikenberry wrote: post #511
kragen wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why be a management company on top of a delivery company? Or a finance company on top of a delivery company? Or an employer on top of a delivery company? Because if you outsource any of those functions 100%, your vendor owns the actual company.

If your company is already public (like FedEx) then you don't own your company anyways. So who cares who owns it. All that matters is that it profits the shareholders.

Yeah, the shareholders really don't appreciate it when the management of the company sells it out from under them to a vendor, cutting off the shareholders' future stream of profits. The cloud is a new enough grift that they maybe aren't aware that that's what's happening.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#570

Post by kragen »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #465
kragen wrote: post #19

Ultimately companies that abdicate their informatics operations like this will give their profits to their data-center operators, who will be empowered to charge them whatever price they want. Because what's their BATNA? Migrating from Azure to AWS when Microsoft doesn't want to let them? Renting your information infrastructure is a great way to reduce startup costs, but down the road, that information infrastructure…

I used to agree with your opinion. Then I worked as an engineering manager at Capital One (deep learning, not infrastructure) and I saw all of the good reasons they had to move to AWS.

That sounds interesting! Can you elaborate?
Post reply on HN