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FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

datacenterdynamics.com

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Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#121

Post by chrisseaton »

beowulfey wrote: post #110
chrisseaton wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The comparison you meant No that’s not what I wrote. You don’t buy a jet outright and forget about the supplier - you’re eternally reliant on their service, certification, parts, etc, as regulation is so high.

Yes but you are comparing to having a datacenter vs removing the datacenter completely. In this example FedEx has removed the datacenter completely, instead relying on someone else’s servers. So the correct comparison is to remove the jets and let someone else fly for you.

> So the correct comparison

That may be your comparison but it’s not the one I meant.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#122

Post by michaelcampbell »

kragen wrote: post #19

Ultimately companies that abdicate their informatics operations like this will give their profits to their data-center operators, who will be empowered to charge them whatever price they want. Because what's their BATNA? Migrating from Azure to AWS when Microsoft doesn't want to let them? Renting your information infrastructure is a great way to reduce startup costs, but down the road, that information infrastructure…

> Trying to outsource it is like trying to outsource upper management.

You say that like it's bad.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#123

Post by hrunt »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #79
Out_of_Characte wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology scales faster than fedex's data needs. Maybe somewhere in the future the reverse trend happens as their needs can be met with very small servers. Though I've always been wary of putting your data somewhere because getting your data to a competitor costs alot of money.

I don't think it's the server costs they care about it's stuff like db maintenance, security, security, and security. Security professionals are expensive, and it's very hard to get right in house on metal.

Moving away from on-prem data centers does not reduce security costs. At best, it's a lateral move, and depending on the cloud setup, may actually be more expensive.

Ultimately, this is an opex vs. capex decision. Data centers are expensive, and require a lot of up front capital to go into the ground. FedEx is worldwide and moving more technology to the edge, so buying land, designing and constructing buildings, and then operating them for 10 years or more in a large number of locales requires a huge investment. They can take that money now and solve their problems immediately.

They are also not saying what they mean by "closing its data centers". FedEx announced a 10-year partnership with Switch last year to build and operate edge facilities. FedEx may be moving out of data centers it operates on its own into facilities built and run by others, and using "cloud-native" designs deployed on hardware in those facilities.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#124

Post by yarky »

usrusr wrote: post #46
kragen wrote: post #19

Ultimately companies that abdicate their informatics operations like this will give their profits to their data-center operators, who will be empowered to charge them whatever price they want. Because what's their BATNA? Migrating from Azure to AWS when Microsoft doesn't want to let them? Renting your information infrastructure is a great way to reduce startup costs, but down the road, that information infrastructure…

But that's only really a change when you come from commodity hardware. For those still on mainframes, what's the difference? Technically the hardware might be charged per replacement cycle instead of monthly, but vendors are just as empowered to demand whatever they want. It's certainly hard to avoid lock-in running stuff on a cloud provider, but I suspect that it is even harder when depending on ye olde mainframe.

I agree, isn't it way easier to switch vendors when running on the cloud? I'd say that encourages competition, since we can literally move the infrastructure using keystrokes instead of muscles.

This makes me think computer infra could potentially become a commodity.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#125

Post by mberning »

hnarn wrote: post #23

Making accurate calculations of data center cost is of course complicated and rarely manages to take everything into account, but the common knowledge I’ve heard is that there comes a point when a company is so large that going on-prem is what actually saves them a lot of money. If FedEx is not large enough to be one of those companies, how large do you actually have to be? Or has cloud pricing changed to the point w…

The transition to “cloud” is often more about the culture and capabilities of a company than the technology. If you have been on some shitty mainframe and a bunch of other technology from the 60s you cannot bank on that carrying you for the next 20-30 years. The people that know that stuff are ancient, expensive, and retiring. “Cloud” is a very good opportunity to jettison the legacy burden and reinvigorate the technical competence of the org.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#126

Post by adwn »

goindeep wrote: post #65
cs702 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without a doubt, a future generation of executives will revisit and reverse the decision to rent all information infrastructure, but that will likely be many, many years down the road. In the meantime, the current generation of executives who made this decision will look very smart for saving the company lots of money for a good number of years. And they stand to benefit personally from it. They're doing the rational…

I used to work with a very smart man that I'm sure was some kind of secret genius. He's was that sort of tech gofer. Hardware, software, didn't matter, if there was a problem he'd solve it. Sort of guy you'd see carrying a thick ass SQL book around because he 'needed to learn it' to solve just one little problem. He built whole entire solutions for the company I worked at in his spare time that the company once tried…

> the pain mixing machines

That sounds ... dystopian.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#127

Post by [deleted] »

lallysingh wrote: post #113
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 53, and I've worked for 3 Fortune 250's. Can confirm. I've seen this happen over and over again. Senior management makes some broad pronouncements, and the mid-level lieutenants have meetings with consultants, and then implement new, expensive projects that "will surely fix 'it' this time." Five to ten years later, after the dust settles, and we figure out that we've strapped YET ANOTHER LAYER of technical debt o…

In SOFTWAR Ellison called it a sort of fashion cycle.

[deleted]

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#128

Post by kragen »

beowulfey wrote: post #62
chrisseaton wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can say the same thing for hundreds of parts of a company like FedEx. For example FedEx flies Boeing jets. It's completely reliant on Boeing for parts for those jets. Presumably Boeing can charge whatever it wants. Your company is always going to be reliant on other suppliers and contracts. Unless you're planning on building your own independent country in some location that has all the natural resources you need…

The better analogy would be that Fedex, since they need to transport things from city to city, could choose to buy jets to transport with instead of renting them or contracting a company to fly for them, which they already do. To remove datacenters is more like removing the jets. Edit: removed rude phrasing.

It is discourteous to claim that someone who says something you disagree with actually intended to say something else.

And believe me, I know a thing or two about being discourteous.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#129

Post by beowulfey »

kragen wrote: post #128
beowulfey wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The better analogy would be that Fedex, since they need to transport things from city to city, could choose to buy jets to transport with instead of renting them or contracting a company to fly for them, which they already do. To remove datacenters is more like removing the jets. Edit: removed rude phrasing.

It is discourteous to claim that someone who says something you disagree with actually intended to say something else. And believe me, I know a thing or two about being discourteous.

That’s true, I should not have phrased it like that.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#130

Post by pid-1 »

cs702 wrote: post #36
kragen wrote: post #19

Ultimately companies that abdicate their informatics operations like this will give their profits to their data-center operators, who will be empowered to charge them whatever price they want. Because what's their BATNA? Migrating from Azure to AWS when Microsoft doesn't want to let them? Renting your information infrastructure is a great way to reduce startup costs, but down the road, that information infrastructure…

Without a doubt, a future generation of executives will revisit and reverse the decision to rent all information infrastructure, but that will likely be many, many years down the road. In the meantime, the current generation of executives who made this decision will look very smart for saving the company lots of money for a good number of years. And they stand to benefit personally from it. They're doing the rational…

That seems to be a common take on HN - cloud is too expensive.

I'm curious whether the folks claiming that have any data center ops experience.

Because, personally, I'd rather retire than deal with Dell, HP, Cisco, fibers, cooling issues, physical security, hardware failling... And that's just the hardware. Then you still need to pay VMWare for a decent virtualization platform, monitoring tools, etc.... Seriously, no amount of money would make me work in a DC again.

I believe companies selling bare metal as a service are a happy compromise of cost and convenience, though.

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