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

Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

restofworld.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 56 posts

Re: Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

#21

Post by redeux »

wongarsu wrote: post #7

> While setting up a data center can cost millions of dollars, small Nigerian teams have found a workaround to this with “colocation” Isn't that what everyone does when starting up a hosting company? Looking at the websites of those companies, I also wouldn't characterize them as AWS or Google Cloud competitors. They offer Virtual Private Servers, FTP storage, maybe an S3 equivalent and Kubernetes. Maybe we can talk…

It’s also funny because AWS uses (or at least used) colo facilities as well. They just never advertised it afaik.

Re: Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

#22

Post by Etheryte »

dehrmann wrote: post #5

> She would pay AWS in dollars even as Okra earned in naira because American cloud providers did not accept payments in local currency at the time. > The payments to AWS gradually skyrocketed as the naira depreciated around 70% against the dollar between 2020 and 2024. > Combine that with Nigeria’s economic challenges — rising inflation and forex volatility > Ashiru took things into her own hands, and Okra set up clo…

The AWS bill comes once a month whereas you buy servers maybe once a year or w/e and then you own them. This alone means that buying servers hedges you against inflation at least to some degree. If inflation is around 20% a year, those savings could be considerable.

Re: Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

#23

Post by yellow_lead »

ethbr1 wrote: post #4

>> She would pay AWS in dollars even as Okra earned in naira because American cloud providers did not accept payments in local currency at the time. The payments to AWS gradually skyrocketed as the naira depreciated around 70% against the dollar between 2020 and 2024. So this is really a forex hedging problem. Although there's an interesting twist with the local colo et al. competition who presumably have capital cos…

The operator could hold a large stock of Amazon gift cards.

Re: Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

#24

Post by unclebucknasty »

kjs3 wrote: post #14
wongarsu wrote: post #7

> While setting up a data center can cost millions of dollars, small Nigerian teams have found a workaround to this with “colocation” Isn't that what everyone does when starting up a hosting company? Looking at the websites of those companies, I also wouldn't characterize them as AWS or Google Cloud competitors. They offer Virtual Private Servers, FTP storage, maybe an S3 equivalent and Kubernetes. Maybe we can talk…

Yeah...you're not really building an 'AWS' until you're building a hyperscaler and leveraging massive economies of scale. This is more "we're building a service that addressed local reality with local solutions", and that's a pretty awesome thing just in itself.

>you're not really building an 'AWS' until you're building a hyperscaler

AFAICT there's no claim that they're "building an AWS" (or attempting to). The title is "Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud".

So, these are alternatives and a skim of the article seems to follow.

I think we've been cloud-indoctrinated here (until recently) to believe viability means fullly-scalable cloud infrastructure.

Re: Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

#25

Post by ethbr1 »

darth_avocado wrote: post #12
ethbr1 wrote: post #4

>> She would pay AWS in dollars even as Okra earned in naira because American cloud providers did not accept payments in local currency at the time. The payments to AWS gradually skyrocketed as the naira depreciated around 70% against the dollar between 2020 and 2024. So this is really a forex hedging problem. Although there's an interesting twist with the local colo et al. competition who presumably have capital cos…

It should be really not that hard to price in local denominations. Netflix charges different subscription costs in different countries and they have their infra built on other cloud providers. Cost of hardware is constant. And the generator, fuel, local electricity, wages etc. CAN be denominated in local currency if the datacenter is local. Obviously if you’re using a server in the US region while sitting in Nigeria,…

Ultimately, pricing is what the market will bear.

So if AWS prices in naira, and the naira loses 70% against the dollar, does AWS change their pricing? Or just take a 70% haircut on their Nigerian revenue?

I get local businesses want cost stability, but it seems like inflation will happen both ways: it'll just take longer to cascade through the supply chain with local-owned, local-priced providers.

Re: Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

#26

Post by unclebucknasty »

wongarsu wrote: post #7

> While setting up a data center can cost millions of dollars, small Nigerian teams have found a workaround to this with “colocation” Isn't that what everyone does when starting up a hosting company? Looking at the websites of those companies, I also wouldn't characterize them as AWS or Google Cloud competitors. They offer Virtual Private Servers, FTP storage, maybe an S3 equivalent and Kubernetes. Maybe we can talk…

>Looking at the websites of those companies, I also wouldn't characterize them as AWS or Google Cloud competitors

I'd say they're more "alternatives" at this point, as the article's title states.

But...

>They offer Virtual Private Servers, FTP storage, maybe an S3 equivalent and Kubernetes.

The number of AWS customers that could survive on these services alone is likely higher than we'd suspect, especially for small companies.

Throw in an RDS-equivalent and maybe load-balancing, and the number rises dramatically.

Of course, this also assumes the connective tissue is also in place (e.g. VPC, security groups, etc).

EDIT: I should've said "the number of AWS customers that currently survive on these services alone..."

Re: Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

#27

Post by sgt »

antithesis-nl wrote: post #9

The premise of the article seems a bit flawed: Nigerians are not replicating hyperscalers, but more like building local Hetzners. And that is a fine idea! A big problem for people doing this, however, is that peering is pretty much nonexistent in Nigeria (and, for that matter, most of Africa). So, traffic from, say, Airtel (where a lot of consumers are) to Globacom (which hosts a lot of major businesses), will not st…

Yes that's crazy. I didn't know there was serious lack of peering in Nigeria and other countries on the continent.

In South Africa however, peering is excellent and has been for decades. I also love using services hosted in-country. I pinged a service now and got 4ms RTT, try that with a London based server.

Re: Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

#29

Post by unclebucknasty »

kjs3 wrote: post #16
unclebucknasty wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a reliable modular datacenter construction technique that allows for easy scaling/expansion? Seems that could have a dramatic impact on bringing these within reach.

Sun had their 'modular data center' concept[1], which was a self contained DC in a standard shipping container. You could chain them together. It wasn't obscenely expensive relatively speaking as I recall. I'm not sure if Sun was 'first', but these days there are all sorts of companies that do the same thing (I was recently in one from Delta). I don't know if they are applicable to the reality on the ground in Nigeri…

Very interesting. Yes, this is along the lines of what I was thinking.

Seems you could calibrate the size of each unit according to anticipated growth and the max a site could sustain, area-wise (i.e. go larger to balance number of containers). Then, prep the site with easily extensible cabling for power/networking between units.

It seems (completely intuiting here) that if the reality on the ground could accommodate full data centers, then this would be possible.

And according to the article, the cost was 1% of traditional data centers.

Re: Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

#30

Post by graemep »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #26
wongarsu wrote: post #7

> While setting up a data center can cost millions of dollars, small Nigerian teams have found a workaround to this with “colocation” Isn't that what everyone does when starting up a hosting company? Looking at the websites of those companies, I also wouldn't characterize them as AWS or Google Cloud competitors. They offer Virtual Private Servers, FTP storage, maybe an S3 equivalent and Kubernetes. Maybe we can talk…

> Looking at the websites of those companies, I also wouldn't characterize them as AWS or Google Cloud competitors I'd say they're more "alternatives" at this point, as the article's title states. But... > They offer Virtual Private Servers, FTP storage, maybe an S3 equivalent and Kubernetes. The number of AWS customers that could survive on these services alone is likely higher than we'd suspect, especially for smal…

> The number of AWS customers that could survive on these services alone is likely higher than we'd suspect, especially for small companies

They could, but they will not.If your AWS is small there is no real motive to look for alternatives. Just stick with the brand you know.

Even a lot of developers are very resistant to using something 'non-standard'.I have had "thats a weird thing to do" reactions to suggestions such as running Postgres on EC2 because it would be easier than using RDS for a small DB.

Post reply on HN