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Cloud services like AWS or Google Cloud Platform may be the wrong choice

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Re: Cloud services like AWS or Google Cloud Platform may be the wrong choice

#111

Post by hagbarth »

buzzdenver wrote: post #84
f0e4c2f7 wrote: post #19

This article is written in kind of a controversial way but it seems like the throughline of the argument is something like "use heroku until you have 100k users". This seems very reasonable to me. I thought it was going to be a pitch for on prem, which is also fine for certain scales. I think generally the scaling steps from startup to megacorp go: Heroku/Dokku > Public Cloud >Dedicated servers in someone else's DC >…

> "use heroku until you have 100k users" Thing is that for most/many startups 100k users is not a lot. Rejiggling your basic infra just as your growth is starting to accelerate is a non-trivial task, a risk, and something that doesn't fundamentally move the needle.

This really depends on what you are building of course. Working in enterprise SaaS with only a few users per account? You'll be doing really well at 100k users.

Re: Cloud services like AWS or Google Cloud Platform may be the wrong choice

#112

Post by makestuff »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #59
Octabrain wrote: post #17

> - Terraform to create the API gateway, database, lambdas, queues, Route 53 records: 1 week - Terraform to create the IAM policies: 4 weeks Perhaps it's because I am very familiar with the aforementioned tool and cloud but 5 weeks for writing those resources gives me the impresion of: 1. Lack of experience on AWS. 2. Lack of experience with Terraform. 3. Both. I don't want to sound arrogant by any means but a Terraf…

I got handed a Terraform project for a GCP-based service. Simple dev, staging, prod environment. Secrets managed by secret manager, SQL Run without a public IP address for prod (but accessible via SSH for admins). I more or less gave up after a month of beating my head on the brick wall. We hired an expert. Took him another month to get it all more or less sorted. There were still aspects that we wanted that we could…

We have been using CDK on AWS and it is really nice because you can do complex things through Typescript.

Re: Cloud services like AWS or Google Cloud Platform may be the wrong choice

#113

Post by waz0wski »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #59
Octabrain wrote: post #17

> - Terraform to create the API gateway, database, lambdas, queues, Route 53 records: 1 week - Terraform to create the IAM policies: 4 weeks Perhaps it's because I am very familiar with the aforementioned tool and cloud but 5 weeks for writing those resources gives me the impresion of: 1. Lack of experience on AWS. 2. Lack of experience with Terraform. 3. Both. I don't want to sound arrogant by any means but a Terraf…

I got handed a Terraform project for a GCP-based service. Simple dev, staging, prod environment. Secrets managed by secret manager, SQL Run without a public IP address for prod (but accessible via SSH for admins). I more or less gave up after a month of beating my head on the brick wall. We hired an expert. Took him another month to get it all more or less sorted. There were still aspects that we wanted that we could…

That's a generic and well documented stack that utilizes GCP defaults and works out of the box. An "expert" should not take a month to fail to set it up.

I've deployed similar, additionally including GKE, via terraform in a day - Checking TF code for an example 3-env GCP/GKE/CloudSQL stack it's less than 300 LoC

That said, it's not all good - my ongoing complaint with terraforming GCP is that the provider lags behind the features & config available in GCP console - worse than the AWS provider - especially w/r/t GKE and CloudSQL

Re: Cloud services like AWS or Google Cloud Platform may be the wrong choice

#114

Post by nine_k »

727564797069706 wrote: post #61

ITT: people who spent many hours learning proprietary (often unnecessarily complex) cloud platforms trying to convince others (and themselves) that it was the best use of their limited time alive. Stockholm syndrome à la Big Cloud. It's okay to be interested in elaborate cloud architecture things and learn them because of that, but don't sell it as one-size-fits-all thing that every little company needs. Most compani…

At small scale, you can lower your complexity using cloud. You don't need k8s for a small operation, just spin a couple of VMs and set them up via a few lines of Ansible.

OTOH you can pick a managed datsbase: you just get a connection string to a Postgres with failover and backup already taken care of. Same with queue services, email services, etc. They have really simple APIs.

You only need platform-specific knowledge when you start operating at a larger scale. By that time, you likely can afford to hire a dedicated SRE.

Re: Cloud services like AWS or Google Cloud Platform may be the wrong choice

#115

Post by sakisv »

f0e4c2f7 wrote: post #19

This article is written in kind of a controversial way but it seems like the throughline of the argument is something like "use heroku until you have 100k users". This seems very reasonable to me. I thought it was going to be a pitch for on prem, which is also fine for certain scales. I think generally the scaling steps from startup to megacorp go: Heroku/Dokku > Public Cloud >Dedicated servers in someone else's DC >…

> Heroku/Dokku > Public Cloud >Dedicated servers in someone else's DC > Custom Hardware in custom built data centers.

I think stackoverflow and its siblings proved that having a handful of servers can go a very long way, even making cloud ops redundant.

Of course this is function of what you're optimizing for, and whether you want to go down the "boring monolithic app" route.

Re: Cloud services like AWS or Google Cloud Platform may be the wrong choice

#116

Post by yrgulation »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #30

> If you're an indie hacker, a boostrapper, a startup, an agency or a consultancy, or just a small team building a product, chances are you are not going to need the cost and complexity that comes with modern cloud platforms. Hard disagree. - On cost: there is almost nothing better for the indie hacker, bootstrapper, or startup than cloud services. I run apps on all three platforms (Google, AWS, and Azure) and my mon…

“ there is almost nothing better for the indie hacker, bootstrapper, or startup than cloud services.”

heroku, a vps or a dedicated server are all in the cloud, not sure what you mean by this.

Re: Cloud services like AWS or Google Cloud Platform may be the wrong choice

#117

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

dijit wrote: post #45
f0e4c2f7 wrote: post #19

This article is written in kind of a controversial way but it seems like the throughline of the argument is something like "use heroku until you have 100k users". This seems very reasonable to me. I thought it was going to be a pitch for on prem, which is also fine for certain scales. I think generally the scaling steps from startup to megacorp go: Heroku/Dokku > Public Cloud >Dedicated servers in someone else's DC >…

I really agree with you, what's weird though is how many mega-corps are going away from Custom Hardware in Custom Built DC towards Cloud. There's also something to be said for buying a VPS or a Colo machine, making sure it's backed up and dealing with the 9's that you get from that machine on it's own. I am routinely surprised by how far a single node machine will get you.

At a certain scale you have more negotiating power so it probably makes more sense from that perspective.

Re: Cloud services like AWS or Google Cloud Platform may be the wrong choice

#118

Post by shmoogy »

auggierose wrote: post #69
ABraidotti wrote: post #24

> It costs how much?! The author's not wrong. Cost comes with lack of accountability in my experience. In turn, my devsecops dept (~20 people) has kept costs down by holding monthly AWS accountability meetings. "Who owns this and why does it exist?" is the leading question. > The all-you-can-eat buffet problem Valid point. But I've gotten far in my career by specializing in AWS. It's not going anywhere soon. It's the…

> GCP? Come on. What's wrong with GCP?

Trust issues

Re: Cloud services like AWS or Google Cloud Platform may be the wrong choice

#119

Post by nkotov »

A whole lot of nothing being said. Use the right tool for the right job.

If you're familiar with AWS, use it and get running and focus on delivering product instead of fine-tuning all the settings and worrying about the perfect cloud environment.

My honest opinion, using some third party tools/services on top of AWS only creates tech debt. Over the last two years, AWS has improved a lot of their tools to be incredibly easy that any developer can use it. Developers should be able to understand how their applications run in the cloud provider as well.

Re: Cloud services like AWS or Google Cloud Platform may be the wrong choice

#120

Post by mattferderer »

TLDR - Author seems to value simplicity & focusing on value for users. Doesn't like AWS/Google/etc. because they have to many advanced features. Suggests using Heroku instead.

The first part I think most anyone would agree with.

The 2nd part doesn't make sense. AWS/Google etc all have simple ways to setup a web app & database without messing with containers, microservices, event architecture etc.

As for cost, they all offer generous free tiers for learning & hobby projects.

If you want to make a business out of it, check out their also very generous programs for startups with over $100,000 of free services. Azure is over $150k.

https://aws.amazon.com/activate/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/startups?rtc=1 https://inthecloud.withgoogle.com/startup/dl-cd.html

Digital Ocean, Cloudflare and many others also offer great incentives to get you to build on their platform for cheap or free in hopes that you succeed & stay with them.

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