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Tell HN: Google Cloud suspended our production projects at 1am on Saturday

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Re: Tell HN: Google Cloud suspended our production projects at 1am on Saturday

#461

Post by jaywalk »

wongarsu wrote: post #328
jaywalk wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company isn't very big (we spend in the very low five-figures with Azure per month) and yet we were assigned an "Azure Success Manager" (or something close to that) who I have a standing monthly phone call with, and can reach out to at any time to oversee any issues that may come up. We actually did have a billing issue come up a while ago (it was Microsoft's fault) and although our account wasn't in any real dang…

> we spend in the very low five-figures with Azure per month That's over $100,000 a year, at that point having a Key Account Manger (or Success Manager or whatever) to talk to should be the expectation.

I agree. But although I've never used GCP, I get the feeling that an account of my size would not get the same treatment.

Re: Tell HN: Google Cloud suspended our production projects at 1am on Saturday

#462

Post by dual_dingo »

SoftTalker wrote: post #453
dharmab wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for one of Azure's biggest customers and our account management teams were fantastic. A few individuals were some of my favorite people I've worked with. That's where all the talent in the Azure support org goes- promoted to the biggest contracts.

Yes the big fish get attention and the small fish get ignored. Welcome to the B2B universe. If you're a small business relative to the scope of your counterparty, you generally won't get good service or have any leverage. Seek out resellers or providers who are closer to yourself in size. You want it to hurt a bit if they lose your business. Of course you can go too far the other way as well, if you're a large client…

I see this for actual service providers that have full control over their business, but if you have resellers of similar size as your own org, don't you end up with the problem that they are about as important for the big provider as you are and you are as screwed as before when things go wrong?

Re: Tell HN: Google Cloud suspended our production projects at 1am on Saturday

#463

Post by hinkley »

staticassertion wrote: post #326
hazbo wrote: post #124

A few years ago I was working at a startup and we had just started moving some stuff over from AWS to GCP. Things were going pretty good with GCP until one day they pulled the plug on everything with no explanation. It turns out that our company credit card details had been fraudulently used without our knowledge. The criminal had decided to use the card to buy Google Ad Words or something like that - this is the sam…

I hear way too many stories like this about Google products. Whether it's Youtube, AdWords, GCP, or anything else - you get blackholed by them and there's zero recourse. I just can't trust Google for something like running production services.

Google seems to be a giant case study in "why spend ten minutes doing something when I can spend a week automating it instead?"

How do you have so many employees and yet everything important is run by unsupervised computers?

Re: Tell HN: Google Cloud suspended our production projects at 1am on Saturday

#464

Post by mgkimsal »

upupandup wrote: post #450
MOARDONGZPLZ wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same experiences here. AWS was awesome. They did crazy things I wouldn’t expect like spend days in person and join us at equinix colo to get the direct connect working. We didn’t even spend that much relatively, under $100k/mo.

THIS. I love how AWS AM go out of their way to deliver, where as Google's AM simply start to ghost you when the conversation gets to heated or not contributing to their bonus cheques. As I've said and others have experienced, GCP's AM are killing their business and we've built up everything around AWS. There's no need to even learn Terraform, all of what we do are automated anyhow without it. CDK is enough. Screw Goo…

> ...simply start to ghost you when ...

I read that as "g-host"

Re: Tell HN: Google Cloud suspended our production projects at 1am on Saturday

#465

Post by hinkley »

stuff4ben wrote: post #381
staticassertion wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear way too many stories like this about Google products. Whether it's Youtube, AdWords, GCP, or anything else - you get blackholed by them and there's zero recourse. I just can't trust Google for something like running production services.

"can't trust Google" There, fix that for you. If it's mission-critical, there are better customer-focused solutions out there than Google. Despite their massive brain power, they just can't seem to get dealing with users correctly.

I recall there was a time in my life where I thought that knowing exactly why a project was failing would make me feel better, but it ended up just making me feel worse. Being right while a project crumbles around you is not an accomplishment. Fix what you can, and move on when they get tired of fixing things.

I don't understand why so many people find comfort in being able to blame a vendor for problems that could potentially end in mass layoffs.

Re: Tell HN: Google Cloud suspended our production projects at 1am on Saturday

#466

Post by twistedpair »

Running your whole company cloud off a credit card is OK pre-seed round, but then you should get a proper business account setup w/ ACH payments/invocing.

Better still, after you grow a bit, use a GCP reseller (SADA and DoIT are great) or a usage commitment with your account manager for a nice discount. I've never heard of one of those accounts getting turned off in the middle of the night.

Sure, it sucks to hear of account lockouts like this, but productionizing your finances is part of the startup lifecycle.

Re: Tell HN: Google Cloud suspended our production projects at 1am on Saturday

#467

Post by rfrey »

intellectronica wrote: post #364
rfrey wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you assume, without evidence, that an HN user is lying if they share a story outside your experience -- there is little reason to use HN.

I don't understand why you think that I assume anyone is lying. Nothing I said suggests that.

The original poster said they paid their bill, they were assured they would not have their account suspended, then it was suspended anyhow despite them being fully paid up.

Your parent said OP did what they were supposed to and paid, but got cut off anyhow -- to which you replied "You don't know that. Maybe that's the case (I'm sure it happens sometimes), but most likely it isn't."

I'm not sure how to interpret that other than you saying OP is probably not being truthful in their account of the situation.

Re: Tell HN: Google Cloud suspended our production projects at 1am on Saturday

#469

Post by tmpz22 »

madeofpalk wrote: post #154
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very happy Hetzner has all these options built in from the very start. There's no need to make any "extra effort". Actually, most of my servers are on yearly billing to make things even easier for everybody.

It's not really the payment method that's key here, it's having a relationship with sales / account manager.

Can we talk about how google monetizes (weaponizes) this sales relationship? They force it on you as "common sense" but it makes them A LOT of money.

Ultimately its as bad as car dealerships to require a special connection to get basic tasks completed.

Re: Tell HN: Google Cloud suspended our production projects at 1am on Saturday

#470

Post by midislack »

It's not just Google cloud that's the problem here. It's using somebody else's computer. Now that you've learned your lesson, you need to run out and buy a nice Threadripper and I guarantee it will run your whole workload eith enough juice to spare so when you're pulling 1 million paying visitors per day or whatever you'll still be able to run your whole operation on one machine. You may have to fire your "responsive" front end people but they'll kill your whole business sooner or later anyhow.
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