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Don't rent the cloud, own instead

blog.comma.ai

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Re: Don't rent the cloud, own instead

#61

Post by wobfan »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #29

At scale (like comma.ai), it's probably cheaper. But until then it's a long term cost optimization with really high upfront capital expenditure and risk. Which means it doesn't make much sense for the majority of startup companies until they become late stage and their hosting cost actually becomes a big cost burden. There are in between solutions. Renting bare metal instead of renting virtual machines can be quite n…

To be fair, I think people are vastly over estimating the work they would have and the power they would need. Yes, if you have to massively scale up, then it'll take some work, but most of it is one-time work. You do it, and when it runs, you only have a fraction of work over the next months to maintain it. And with fraction, I mean below 5%. And keep in mind that >99% of startups who think of "yeah we need this and that cloud, because we need to scale" will never scale. Instead they are happily locking themselves into a cloud service. And if they actually scale at some point, this service will be massively more expensive.

Re: Don't rent the cloud, own instead

#62

Post by petesergeant »

One thing I don't really understand here is why they're incurring the costs of having this physically in San Diego, rather than further afield with a full-time server tech essentially living on-prem, especially if their power numbers are correct. Is everyone being able to physically show up on site immediately that much better than a 24/7 pair of remote hands + occasional trips for more team members if needed?

Re: Don't rent the cloud, own instead

#63

Post by olavgg »

speedgoose wrote: post #49

I would suggest to use both on-premise hardware and cloud computing. Which is probably what comma is doing. For critical infrastructure, I would rather pay a competent cloud provider than being responsible for reliability issues. Maintaining one server room in the headquarters is something, but two servers rooms in different locations, with resilient power and network is a bit too much effort IMHO. For running many s…

> I would rather pay a competent cloud provider than being responsible for reliability issues.

Why do so many developers and sysadmins think they're not competent for hosting services. It is a lot easier than you think, and its also fun to solve technical issues you may have.

Re: Don't rent the cloud, own instead

#64

Post by maccard »

wobfan wrote: post #61
jillesvangurp wrote: post #29

At scale (like comma.ai), it's probably cheaper. But until then it's a long term cost optimization with really high upfront capital expenditure and risk. Which means it doesn't make much sense for the majority of startup companies until they become late stage and their hosting cost actually becomes a big cost burden. There are in between solutions. Renting bare metal instead of renting virtual machines can be quite n…

To be fair, I think people are vastly over estimating the work they would have and the power they would need. Yes, if you have to massively scale up, then it'll take some work, but most of it is one-time work. You do it, and when it runs, you only have a fraction of work over the next months to maintain it. And with fraction, I mean below 5%. And keep in mind that >99% of startups who think of "yeah we need this and…

We have two on site servers that we use. For various reasons (power cuts, internet outages, cleaners unplugging them) I’d say we have to intervene with them physically about once a month. It’s a total pain in the ass, especially when you don’t have _an_ it person sitting in the office to mind it. I’m in the Uk and our office is in Spain…

But it is significantly cheaper and faster

Re: Don't rent the cloud, own instead

#65

Post by srg0 »

AndroTux wrote: post #50
sschueller wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, does anyone remember the OVH fire[1][2]? [1] https://www.techradar.com/news/remember-the-ovhcloud-data-ce... [2] https://blocksandfiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ovhclo...

contingency plan: Don't build your data center out of wood.

Plastic is made from the same stuff as gasoline.

Re: Don't rent the cloud, own instead

#66

Post by pageandrew »

olavgg wrote: post #63
speedgoose wrote: post #49

I would suggest to use both on-premise hardware and cloud computing. Which is probably what comma is doing. For critical infrastructure, I would rather pay a competent cloud provider than being responsible for reliability issues. Maintaining one server room in the headquarters is something, but two servers rooms in different locations, with resilient power and network is a bit too much effort IMHO. For running many s…

> I would rather pay a competent cloud provider than being responsible for reliability issues. Why do so many developers and sysadmins think they're not competent for hosting services. It is a lot easier than you think, and its also fun to solve technical issues you may have.

The point was about redundancy / geo spread / HA. It’s significantly more difficult to operate two physical sites than one. You can only be in one place at a time.

If you want true reliability, you need redundant physical locations, power, networking. That’s extremely easy to achieve on cloud providers.

Re: Don't rent the cloud, own instead

#67

Post by otherme123 »

sschueller wrote: post #3
sys42590 wrote: post #2

It would be interesting to hear their contingency plan for any kind of disaster (most commonly a fire) that hits their data center.

Yep, does anyone remember the OVH fire[1][2]? [1] https://www.techradar.com/news/remember-the-ovhcloud-data-ce... [2] https://blocksandfiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ovhclo...

I fully lost three small VPS there, and their response was poor: they didn't even refund time lost, they didn't compensate for time lost (e.g. a couple of months of free VPS), I got better updates from the news than from them (news were saying "almost total loss", while them were trying to convince me that I had the incredible bad luck that my three VPS were in the very small zone affected by the fire). The only way I had to recover what I lost was backups in local machines.

When someone point out how safe are cloud providers, as if they have multiple levels of redundancy and are fully protected against even an alien invasion, I remember the OVH fire.

Re: Don't rent the cloud, own instead

#68

Post by jim180 »

olavgg wrote: post #63
speedgoose wrote: post #49

I would suggest to use both on-premise hardware and cloud computing. Which is probably what comma is doing. For critical infrastructure, I would rather pay a competent cloud provider than being responsible for reliability issues. Maintaining one server room in the headquarters is something, but two servers rooms in different locations, with resilient power and network is a bit too much effort IMHO. For running many s…

> I would rather pay a competent cloud provider than being responsible for reliability issues. Why do so many developers and sysadmins think they're not competent for hosting services. It is a lot easier than you think, and its also fun to solve technical issues you may have.

Also I'd add this question, why do so many developers and sysadmins think, that cloud companies always hire competent/non-lazy/non-pissed employees?

Re: Don't rent the cloud, own instead

#69

Post by account42 »

pageandrew wrote: post #66
olavgg wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would rather pay a competent cloud provider than being responsible for reliability issues. Why do so many developers and sysadmins think they're not competent for hosting services. It is a lot easier than you think, and its also fun to solve technical issues you may have.

The point was about redundancy / geo spread / HA. It’s significantly more difficult to operate two physical sites than one. You can only be in one place at a time. If you want true reliability, you need redundant physical locations, power, networking. That’s extremely easy to achieve on cloud providers.

You don't need full "cloud" providers for that, colocation is a thing.

Re: Don't rent the cloud, own instead

#70

Post by rvz »

olavgg wrote: post #63
speedgoose wrote: post #49

I would suggest to use both on-premise hardware and cloud computing. Which is probably what comma is doing. For critical infrastructure, I would rather pay a competent cloud provider than being responsible for reliability issues. Maintaining one server room in the headquarters is something, but two servers rooms in different locations, with resilient power and network is a bit too much effort IMHO. For running many s…

> I would rather pay a competent cloud provider than being responsible for reliability issues. Why do so many developers and sysadmins think they're not competent for hosting services. It is a lot easier than you think, and its also fun to solve technical issues you may have.

> Why do so many developers and sysadmins think they're not competent for hosting services.

Because those services solve the problem for them. It is the same thing with GitHub.

However, as predicted half a decade ago with GitHub becoming unreliable [0] and as price increases begin to happen, you can see that self-hosting begins to make more sense and you have complete control of the infrastructure and it has never been more easier to self host and bring control over costs.

> its also fun to solve technical issues you may have.

What you have just seen with coding agents is going to have the same effect on "developers" that will have a decline in skills the moment they become over-reliant on coding agents and won't be able to write a single line of code at all to fix a problem they don't fully understand.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22867803

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