arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud • Hacker News Board

Re: arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud

#31

Post by johann8384 » Fri, Apr 18, 2025, 11:34 AM UTC

elif wrote: post #19

dig1 wrote: post #18

> We are already underway on the arXiv CE ("Cloud Edition") project... replace the portion of our backends still written in perl and PHP...re-architect our article processing to be fully asynchronous,.. we can deploy via Kubernetes or services like Google Cloud Run...improve our monitoring and logging facilities Why do I smell someone from G was there and sold them fancy cloud story (or they wanted VMs and reseller s…

I think this is more likely a move to prevent Cornell funding from getting tied up with dictations about what gets published. But in all likelihood someone was probably just like "we're tired of doing ops on 2 decades old stacks"

It sounds like they are just using GCP. It doesn't really change that.

Re: arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud

#32

Post by dewey » Fri, Apr 18, 2025, 11:34 AM UTC

einpoklum wrote: post #22

Another piece of (effectively) public infrastructure coming under the control of the mega-corporations, and Alphabet specifically.

Just because you are hosting at a company doesn’t mean they are “controlling” it.

Re: arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud

#33

Post by cruzcampo » Fri, Apr 18, 2025, 11:34 AM UTC

More capitalist capture of the commons - another day in america.

Re: arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud

#34

Post by worthless-trash » Fri, Apr 18, 2025, 11:34 AM UTC

dark-star wrote: post #11

Brosper wrote: post #8

They should definitely update UI of the website.

Why, what's wrong with the UI?

Not react enough.

Re: arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud

#35

Post by johann8384 » Fri, Apr 18, 2025, 11:35 AM UTC

einpoklum wrote: post #22

Another piece of (effectively) public infrastructure coming under the control of the mega-corporations, and Alphabet specifically.

I don't understand why people are being so dramatic about them using GCP.

Re: arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud

#36

Post by gapan » Fri, Apr 18, 2025, 11:35 AM UTC

falcor84 wrote: post #26

londons_explore wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This.... I bet arXiv was run on server hardware costing under $10k before... And now it'll end up costing $10k per month (with free credit from Google which will eventually go away and then arXiv will shut down or be forced to go commercial)

I assume they would still have the serving code they use now and if they do choose to go back to maintaining it on their own hardware they'll always have that option. It seems they just don't want that anymore.

That will be several years down the line, when everything has bit-rotten to death and nobody in the team remembers how the old setup worked.

Re: arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud

#37

Post by dewey » Fri, Apr 18, 2025, 11:35 AM UTC

Tepix wrote: post #27

einpoklum wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate regarding the privacy concern? arXiv content is public, isn't it?

Google will likely see who accesses which papers

They could already just look at Google Search popularity if that would be so interesting.

Re: arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud

#38

Post by andyjohnson0 » Fri, Apr 18, 2025, 11:39 AM UTC

Looks to me like their motivation was largely down to skillset issues and recruitment.

If this is motivated by the prospect of being menaced by the current US government then, while Google might be a safer home, arXiv is still vulnerable to having its funding disrupted by malicious actors.

Re: arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud

#39

Post by harywilke » Fri, Apr 18, 2025, 11:40 AM UTC

perihelions wrote: post #9

Is this related to the federal government's vendetta against Cornell? And is there a risk Cornell becomes unable to operate arXiv because of this? https://www.npr.org/2025/04/09/g-s1-59090/trump-officials-ha... ( "Trump officials halt $1 billion in funding for Cornell, $790 million for Northwestern" )

No, they announced that they are starting this project back in June 2023 [0], though it is good to see Cornell suing the administration for the second time, first was back in February. And as an alum, who also had relatives up at syracuse, i appreciate the snark from syracuse.com [1] calling Cornell a 'central NY college' heh

0. https://blog.arxiv.org/2023/06/ 1. https://www.syracuse.com/news/2025/04/central-ny-college-sue...

Re: arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud

#40

Post by x_may » Fri, Apr 18, 2025, 11:41 AM UTC

It may be that it was time for the hardware that was previously running Arxiv to be retired and this is just another Capex -> Opex decision being made by so many tech companies.

I'd like to know if GCP is covering part of the bill? Or will Cornell be paying all of it? The new architecture smells of "[GCP] will pay/credit all of these new services if you agree to let one of our architects work with you". If GCP is helping, stay tuned for a blog post from google some time around the completion of the migration with a title like "Reaffirming our commitment to science" or something similarly self affirming.