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Almost every infrastructure decision I endorse or regret

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Re: Almost every infrastructure decision I endorse or regret

#371

Post by viraptor »

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #152
morsecodist wrote: post #131

> Picking AWS over Google Cloud I know this is an unpopular opinion but I think google cloud is amazing compared to AWS. I use google cloud run and it works like a dream. I have never found an easier way to get a docker container running in the cloud. The services all have sensible names, there are fewer more important services compared to the mess of AWS services, and the UI is more intuitive. The only downside I ha…

I have had the experience of an AWS account manager helping me by getting something fixed (working at a big client). But more commonly, I think the account manager’s job at AWS or any cloud or SAAS is to create a reality distortion field and distract you from how much they are charging you.

Maybe your TAM is different, but our regularly do presentations about cost breakdown, future planning and possible reservations. There's nothing distracting there.

Re: Almost every infrastructure decision I endorse or regret

#372

Post by nightfly »

dfgdfg34545456 wrote: post #364
electroly wrote: post #6

> The markup cost of using RDS (or any managed database) is worth it. Every so often I price out RDS to replace our colocated SQL Server cluster and it's so unrealistically expensive that I just have to laugh. It's absurdly far beyond what I'd be willing to pay. The markup is enough to pay for the colocation rack, the AWS Direct Connects, the servers, the SAN, the SQL Server licenses, the maintenance contracts, and a…

For big companies such as banks this cost comparison is not as straight forward. They have whole data centres just sitting there for disaster recovery. They periodically do switchovers to test DR. All of this expense goes away when they migrate to cloud.

> All of this expense goes away when they migrate to cloud.

Just to pay someone else enough money to provide the same service and make a profit while do it

Re: Almost every infrastructure decision I endorse or regret

#373

Post by marcinzm »

rickette wrote: post #277
halfcat wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have never found an easier way to get a docker container running in the cloud We started using Azure Container Apps (ACA) and it seems simple enough. Create ACA, point to GitHub repo, it runs. Push an update to GitHub and it redeploys.

Azure Container Apps (ACA) and AWS AppRunner are also heavily "inspired" by Google Cloud Run.

So?

Re: Almost every infrastructure decision I endorse or regret

#374

Post by viraptor »

davedx wrote: post #267

Utter insanity. So much cost and complexity, and for what? Startups don’t think about costs or runway anymore, all they care about is “modern infrastructure”. The argument for RDS seems to be “we can’t automate backups”. What on earth?

> The argument for RDS seems to be “we can’t automate backups”. What on earth?

I can automate backups and I'm extremely happy they with some extra cost in RDS, I don't have to do that.

Also, at some size automating the database backup becomes non-trivial. I mean, I can manage a replica (which needs to be updated at specific times after the writer), then regularly stop replication for a snapshot, which is then encrypted, shipped to storage, then manage the lifecycle of that storage, then setup monitoring for all of that, then... Or I can set one parameter on the Aurora cluster and have all of that happen automatically.

Re: Almost every infrastructure decision I endorse or regret

#375

Post by esskay »

ndjshe3838 wrote: post #78

I’m imagining a developer in the 90s/00s reading this list and being baffled by the complexity/terminology

The funny thing is a lot of smaller startups are seeing just how absurdly expensive these service are, and are just switching back to basic bare metal server hosting.

For 99% of businesses it's a wasteful, massive overkill expense. You dont NEED all the shiny tools they offer, they don't add anything to your business but cost. Unless you're a Netflix or an Apple who needs massive global content distribution and processing services theres a good chance you're throwing money away.

Re: Almost every infrastructure decision I endorse or regret

#377

Post by jiggawatts »

andreif wrote: post #294
darknavi wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have never found an easier way to get a docker container running in the cloud I don't have a ton of Azure or cloud experience but I run an Unraid server locally which has a decent Docker gui. Getting a docker container running in Azure is so complicated. I gave up after an hour of poking around.

Azure is a complete disaster, deserves its own garbage-category, and gives people PTSD. I don't think AWS/CGP should ever be compared to it at all.

Funnily enough, I have the opposite opinion.

AWS has "fun" features like the ability to just lose track of some resource and still be billed for it. It's in here... somewhere. Not sure which region or account. I'll find it one day.

GCP is made by Google, also known as children that forgot to take their ADHD medication. Any minute now they'll just casually announce that they're cancelling the cloud because they're bored of it.

Azure is the only one I've seen with a sane management interface, where you can actually see everything everywhere all at once. Search, filter, query-across-resources, etc... all work reasonably well.

Re: Almost every infrastructure decision I endorse or regret

#378

Post by lazyasciiart »

hhsectech wrote: post #317
jumploops wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny story time. I was once part of an acquisition from a much larger corporate entity. The new parent company was in the middle of a huge cloud migration, and as part of our integration into their org, we were required to migrate our services to the cloud. Our calculations said it would cost 3x as much to run our infra on the cloud. We pushed back, and were greenlit on creating a hybrid architecture that allowed us…

There are two possible scenarios here. Firstly, they can't find the talent to support what you implemented...or more likely, your docs suck! I've made a career out of inheriting other peoples whacky setups and supporting them (as well as fixing them) and almost always its documentation that has prevented the client getting anywhere. I personally dont care if the docs are crap because usually the first thing I do is u…

Unfortunately it’s also possible that e.g the company switched from share point to confluence and lost half the entire knowledge base because it wasn’t labeled the way they thought it was. Or that the docs were all purged because they were part of an abandoned project.

Re: Almost every infrastructure decision I endorse or regret

#379

Post by magicalhippo »

AznHisoka wrote: post #169
magicalhippo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question. We don't have a DBA either. I've learned SQL as needed and while I'm not terrible, it's still daunting when making the schema for a new module that might require 10-20 tables or more. One thing that has worked well for us is to alway include the top-most parent key in all child tables down yhe hierarchy. This way we can load all the data for say an order without joins/exists. Oh and never use natural k…

Not to pick on you, but is SQL not basic knowledge for every software engineer these days? Or have times changed?

Perhaps I undersold myself a little. By the time I got my first job I was fairly well versed in SQL querying, and these days I feel comfortable writing what I'd consider complex queries. That is with various window functions, nested queries, recursion (though I try to avoid that) etc, and I have a good handle on what the query optimizer likes and doesn't like.

But schema design is something else. I still take my time doing that.

Especially since our application is written with backwards compatibility in mind, so changing schema after it's deployed is something we try very hard to avoid.

But yeah, when hiring we require they are comfortable writing "normal" SQL queries (multiple joins, aggregation etc).

Re: Almost every infrastructure decision I endorse or regret

#380

Post by mciancia »

LadyCailin wrote: post #329
hhsectech wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh? I've never had a problem moving data out of AWS. Have people lost the ability to write export and backup scripts?

It’s the cost of data egress, which isn’t free.

But there is no paid egress when we are moving data between account within one region, rigth?
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