Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#141

Post by minhazm » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 8:50 PM UTC

ksec wrote: post #90

slimsag wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that Apple internally has plans to compete with AWS and Google Cloud in the long term, but with M1 chips. There have been rumors[0][1] about this, and it's a logical step. Not a far leap to speculate that Microsoft/GitHub has been granted early access to that program. [0] https://seekingalpha.com/article/4466949-new-leak-suggests-a... [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2021/06/16/apple-planning-to-rival...

I seriously, seriously doubt that. Apple has needs for serving 1+ Billion of its customers. IS&T has been known to be a complete pile of crap ( plenty of evidence on HN alone ). A dozens of hiring seems more to me like trying to fix things rather than compete. The will need hundreds if not thousands as bare minimum. They have been pitting Azure against AWS and GCP against Azure to gain extremely favourable terms.

They're already doing it somewhat with Xcode Cloud, which does remote builds in Apple's infrastructure[1]. They might not directly compete with AWS, Azure or GCP in products one to one, but it's not unreasonable to assume they will expand their cloud offerings in this space over time.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/xcode-cloud/

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#142

Post by simondotau » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

GhettoComputers wrote: post #87

withinrafael wrote: post #56

GitHub Actions uses VMs. Not sure how they, and not Amazon, were able to pull this off. That subject is sensitive and reportedly under NDA. https://github.com/actions/virtual-environments/issues/2604#...

Microsoft owns a significant amount of Apple stock.

Citation?

Remember in 1997, Microsoft invested 150 million dollars into Apple to appease regulators? They sold it in 2003 for a tidy 550 million dollars. Nice return on investment!

If they didn't sell it, it would be worth approximately 130 BILLION dollars today.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#143

Post by jpraczyk » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 8:52 PM UTC

chx wrote: post #97

runako wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.macstadium.com/datacenters There's an image there that appears to have the units mounted sideways for perhaps 6 minis in 2 RU?

At Amazon scale, I imagine they strip the original chassis and use only the motherboard with custom power and cooling for some insane density. As visible here https://youtu.be/R4ArjHz4gd4?t=192 you could save some significant space doing so.

Sorry to disappoint you https://www.servethehome.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/AWS-...

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#144

Post by GhettoComputers » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 8:56 PM UTC

simondotau wrote: post #142

GhettoComputers wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft owns a significant amount of Apple stock.

Citation? Remember in 1997, Microsoft invested 150 million dollars into Apple to appease regulators? They sold it in 2003 for a tidy 550 million dollars. Nice return on investment! If they didn't sell it, it would be worth approximately 130 BILLION dollars today.

Looks like you’re right, MS liquidated it a long time ago, and I mixed up Gates and MS, but if we call 5% as lowest amount of significance or how it was non voting stock it still isn’t a good point I made.

https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-founder-bill-gat...

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#145

Post by smilespray » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 8:57 PM UTC

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #138

Every time I look at the AWS prices page or at its control panel, I feel like I need to get a special advanced degree to understand a thing.

You're not alone. Feels like it's on purpose.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#146

Post by rsync » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 8:58 PM UTC

cavisne wrote: post #130

bogwog wrote: post #124

If M1 macs were like iPhones, where a new one was released every year, I could see it maybe being useful to pay for something like this. But since they aren’t, and since an M1 mini only costs $699, it doesn’t make sense to me. If you use it 24/7, even the cheapest provider is going to be more expensive than just buying one (or 3) Even if you only use it for building/compiling iOS software, it’s probably still cheaper…

They mentioned the main use case when they launched the initial Mac ec2 instances. Any company that does something on iOS/macos needs mac hardware to run builds on, there is no other (legal) option. The status quo (even at very large companies) is some mac mini's under someones desk/in a closet somewhere. This is basically replacing the cost of that setup (ie the oncall for it/hassle). The AWS service is even more ex…

Is this really true?

There really isn’t a cross compiling chain that would allow me to build a macOS app on a freebsd system (for instance) ?

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#147

Post by pwojnaro » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 9:01 PM UTC

neilalexander wrote: post #16

nicoburns wrote: post #2

The 24 hour minimum pricing model for these really sucks. My understanding is that this is a condition of Apple's license to Amazon to run macOS on these machines, and I can't work out why they'd do it.

They aren't just firing up a virtual machine on over-provisioned hardware, they're dedicating an entire bare metal machine to you. It is in their interests to make that worthwhile commercially.

It's entirely possible that the 24hr minimum is driven by the operational overhead, not just the licensing terms. Since this is bare metal, re-provisioning between customer sessions might require some level of human interaction, and this needs to be baked into the cost model of such a service.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#148

Post by chx » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 9:02 PM UTC

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #138

Every time I look at the AWS prices page or at its control panel, I feel like I need to get a special advanced degree to understand a thing.

https://twitter.com/br_/status/979442438254166016

> "selling AWS at a loss" is crisp shorthand for a lot of startups' business models!

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#149

Post by zamadatix » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

icelusxl wrote: post #63

zamadatix wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scaleway has them for €2.4/day.

€49/month at Hetzner. https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/matrix-apple

+ a €49 setup fee.

I've never really understood Hetzner's offering, I can get paying €2.4 for a quick one off or a once a month build but I don't get how €98 + €49 per additional month is better than buying a Mac Mini on a payment plan.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#150

Post by jedberg » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #138

Every time I look at the AWS prices page or at its control panel, I feel like I need to get a special advanced degree to understand a thing.

There are entire consulting businesses based on the idea of helping people understand their AWS bill.

But I'm not sure what the tradeoff is. They have a lot of services with a lot of options. The pricing is designed to meet everyone's needs.