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Evernote’s transition to Google Cloud Platform

blog.evernote.com

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Re: Evernote’s transition to Google Cloud Platform

#121

Post by aluminussoma »

yeukhon wrote: post #84
aluminussoma wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did try EMR + s3distcp a while ago. AWS Support recommended it and provided instructions in their docs. It was not very fast for me. The data I was trying to copy was about 400 GB of small 5-20 kb files - not ideal for fast copying. I gave up and used a different method. I suspect Evernote, if using S3, would have a similar data profile of many small objects.

Do you think you can share with the public this different method? If not, I completely understand.

No secret - I used s3s3mirror. Multithreaded copying.

Re: Evernote’s transition to Google Cloud Platform

#122

Post by user5994461 »

cm2187 wrote: post #16

I can understand that a company wants to do away with the distraction of having to worry about running a datacentre but is using one of the major cloud services cheaper than running your own? Amazon and Microsoft seem to be making healthy profits off their cloud services. That's part of your cost. Now it may be that even if more expensive, it is a better use of your capital (renting instead of owning so that you can…

> is using one of the major cloud services cheaper than running your own?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: HELL YES!

People commonly underestimate what it would take to have their own AWS/Google by multiple orders of magnitude.

Re: Evernote’s transition to Google Cloud Platform

#123

Post by user5994461 »

quanticle wrote: post #4

Evernote’s engagement with Google engineers was a pleasant surprise to McCormack. The team was available 24/7 to handle Evernote’s concerns remotely, and Google also sent a team of its engineers over to Evernote’s facilities to help with the migration. Those Google employees were around to help troubleshoot any technical challenges Evernote was having with the move. That sort of engineer-to-engineer engagement is som…

> Or is this a sign of a change in the GCE support model?

It's standard practice for all professional services (not limited to tech or cloud). When you are a major client you always get privileges and custom support.

It's a mix of you pay so much for the service that they can give you some help + it's good for PR and case studies + it helps them to gather feedback on their services.

That's just the way business do business (outside of the 20 years old children at SV companies who are scared to talk to sales guys and support).

Re: Evernote’s transition to Google Cloud Platform

#124

Post by user5994461 »

tpetry wrote: post #5

Sadly the article never describes HOW they transfer the data. Simply sending 3PB on the wire will cost a fortune. Maybe Google does have some non-public service like AWS Snowball?

Nope.

First, getting data into the cloud is cheap, it's outbound bandwidth that's expensive.

Second, that's peanuts for a big company. Most wouldn't notice a 100k bills for a one of transfer. Not to mention it's negligible compared to the size of storage and processing.

Re: Evernote’s transition to Google Cloud Platform

#125

Post by superdaniel »

unix-junkie wrote: post #11

The Stanford HPC team reported last year having sent more than 2PB to Google drive using Lustre/HSM. This was using the public API and the fact that gdrive is free for *.edu sites. See https://www.eofs.eu/_media/events/lad16/07_thiell_cheap_n_de... (slides) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbE0nl5V8WE

Wow. I wonder how many eyebrows at google that has raised

Re: Evernote’s transition to Google Cloud Platform

#126

Post by CaptSpify »

cm2187 wrote: post #16

I can understand that a company wants to do away with the distraction of having to worry about running a datacentre but is using one of the major cloud services cheaper than running your own? Amazon and Microsoft seem to be making healthy profits off their cloud services. That's part of your cost. Now it may be that even if more expensive, it is a better use of your capital (renting instead of owning so that you can…

> But is it cheaper, at an equivalent level of service / redundancy?

I see people saying yes to this all the time, but I've never seen it come true. I'd love to see some hard stats, but I've never seen them.

Re: Evernote’s transition to Google Cloud Platform

#127

Post by CaptSpify »

grx wrote: post #27

Nice Google ad, well done! > Evernote wanted to take advantage of the cloud Evernote _is_ part of the cloud. Buzzzz > Evernote houses a large amount of unstructured data, and the company is looking to do more with machine learning. Meaning private data? Is this covered in the TOS? Can I influence the usage of my data by Google before migration?

Has evernote ever claimed that your private data is inaccessible to them? Legitimate question as I've never used their product.

Re: Evernote’s transition to Google Cloud Platform

#128

Post by belril »

aluminussoma wrote: post #120
belril wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! Author here. (Nice to meet you.) I can tell you that Evernote, not Google, pitched this story to me. While the Google Cloud PR team was aware of its existence, they did not contact or attempt to influence me when it came to its content. (Literally, all that they did was confirm the on-site presence of their engineers, and that an engagement of that sort wasn't a one-off favor to Evernote.) Unfortunately, a techni…

Thank you for your response and adding clarity around how the story came to be. You must forgive us if we are inherently suspicious.

Happy to add clarity where I can -- it is my job, after all. Suspicion and skepticism are healthy, and I totally hear the criticism that the piece feels marketing copy-esque.

For what it's worth, the Evernote team seems genuinely happy with the way the transition went, along with their interactions with Google.

Re: Evernote’s transition to Google Cloud Platform

#130

Post by neotek »

dang wrote: post #97
neotek wrote: post #42

That was a surprisingly frustrating article to read. It kept repeating the exact same things just worded slightly differently over and over again, like the four or five times it mentions machine learning being a major part of Evernote's decision to go with Google, without ever explaining what, exactly, that machine learning would be. The whole thing reads like a press release targeted at an audience that doesn't know…

Thanks. We changed the URL to that from http://www.pcworld.com/article/3167594/data-center-cloud/her... .

Thanks mate, I wish other online communities were moderated this well!
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