AWS mistakes to avoid • Hacker News Board

Re: AWS mistakes to avoid

#221

Post by vemv » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 3:35 PM UTC

sergiotapia wrote: post #123

mattbillenstein wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard this a few times -- AWS is a very complex product that gives you a lot of freedom in how you build your product using it. I think the web UI works about as well as it could given that complexity. If you want something simpler, you have Heroku and a bunch of similar things which make a bunch of decisions for you -- but you don't have the flexibility there that you do with AWS of course.

There has to be some middle ground between AWS and Heroku though.

It's called Elastic Beanstalk! As it name suggests you can start as easily as with Heroku, and adapt it later with whatever additional AWS infrastructure you may need.

Re: AWS mistakes to avoid

#222

Post by jrochkind1 » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 3:56 PM UTC

zenlikethat wrote: post #164

jrochkind1 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not "do my research" on the sales site of one of the vendors, if that's what you're suggesting.

The poster is suggesting that the firms listed on Amazon's page did their research before buying, then settled on AWS and felt strongly enough that it was a good choice to make a public recommendation.

Or got enough of a discount/payment to make a public recommendation in return?

Re: AWS mistakes to avoid

#223

Post by furfish » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 4:00 PM UTC

obulpathi wrote: post #205

albertoleal wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some alternatives to AWS? Are there realistic alternatives?

Please take a look into Google Cloud. It's now feature equivalent with AWS ( https://cloud.google.com/docs/google-cloud-platform-for-aws-... ). Google Cloud is better than AWS on all fronts other than Relational Databases. Google Cloud has MySQL only. AWS has MySQL, PostreSQL, Oracle, MSSQl. Rest of the services Google beats AWS by a fair and wide margin. I have done a fair amount of benchmarking Google vs AWS in pas…

You'll need a better source than a Google marketing page to support claims of "feature parity". An objective comparison also shouldn't start with "Please look into Google cloud".

Re: AWS mistakes to avoid

#224

Post by ant6n » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

emerongi wrote: post #201

tomglindmeier wrote: post #93

I wonder if AWS is a good location to run a VoIP server. VoIP is a real time application that is very prone to jitter, latency and packet loss. I'm concerned about "noisy neighbors" and decreased network performance at AWS. Does anybody have experience with running a VoIP (e. g. Asterisk) on AWS?

I sell an application built around VoIP. I dislike running my own servers, so just lately I moved them to AWS. At first, I used instances that were not very performant, causing some problems. I quickly moved to more powerful instances and since then there have been no problems at all. There is a slight delay, which is normal, since the servers are not in the same country as the users anymore, but the users haven't no…

How can you be sure that your users haven't noticed?

Re: AWS mistakes to avoid

#225

Post by bliti » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 4:14 PM UTC

ddevault wrote: post #103

Full disclosure: I work for Linode and I am super biased. This is my own opinion etc etc Perhaps the first AWS mistake you might make is... using AWS? Even before I started at Linode, I thought it was terrible. It's extremely, unreasonably pricey. The UI is terrible. Their offerings are availble elsewhere. I started MediaCrush, a now-defunct media hosting website, on AWS. After a while, we switched to dedicated hosti…

People pay for convenience. AWS is just convenient. Managing your own servers requires more work. It is far far far cheaper in terms of server costs. You do have to:

- Know how to maintain a server by yourself

- Hire someone who can

AWS removes part of that and thus people pay for it. An average (good enough) sys admin costs the same as a programmer.

Re: AWS mistakes to avoid

#226

Post by dastbe » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 4:45 PM UTC

obulpathi wrote: post #206

jasode wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "alternatives" depend on your situation. Picture a continuum between brain-dead simple websites and business-critical complex websites: simple: static website, WordPress blog moderate: small business CMS, etc complex: Netflix, AirBNB If you're running a simple WordPress blog, the AWS prices are absurdly overkill. For this use-case, there are a zillion alternatives. Linode, Digital Ocean, Rackspace bare metal, etc…

If you look at the speed at which Google Cloud has been adding products for past 6 months, you will be amazed. Google Cloud is now feature complete with AWS and 90% of its products are far better than AWS.

Much like I wouldn't trust a person's whose only comments on hn are AWS puff, why should I trust a person whose only posts are Google Cloud puff?

Re: AWS mistakes to avoid

#227

Post by overgard » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 4:54 PM UTC

This might be the wrong place to ask, but I'm curious how people feel Azure stacks up to AWS? The services seem comparable (maybe even nicer), but I'm unclear how it compares on cost.

Re: AWS mistakes to avoid

#228

Post by mailshanx » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 4:59 PM UTC

devonkim wrote: post #204

JabavuAdams wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fairly naive way of looking at it. Often it's easier to deal with an external organization than to fix your own organization's behaviour. In a lot of pathologically-managed companies or divisions, there is effectively zero chance of an employee being able changing the pathology.

I have heard of a few poorly managed companies pulling out of ruin by using consultants and third party labor to supplement their collapsing workforce. But I've seen poorly managed companies on occasion fire their executives and stabilize as well. People love to spend 7 figures on consultants and refuse to take their advice in favor of suck-ups that recommend that they just slightly change what they're doing or just…

Are there any particularly memorable situations in your consulting career that illustrate the political realities of such organizations? Would be really awesome if you can share any :)

Re: AWS mistakes to avoid

#229

Post by paulddraper » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 5:24 PM UTC

obulpathi wrote: post #210

autotune wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also quite a few Ansible core modules for EC2 if you're looking for a uniform way to manage your resources outside of the AWS GUI, although to be honest I'm not sure if that's "easier" so much as more flexible. Still solves the problem with mistake #1.

Try Kubernetes may be?

That's for containers. It isn't used to, say, setup SQS.

Re: AWS mistakes to avoid

#230

Post by _delirium » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 6:13 PM UTC

flyt wrote: post #160

late2part wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck trying to get huge capacity from AWS with no history. Their service limits start low and ratchet slowly, if they have the capacity to give. All these features and elasticity sound nice until you get big and they don't deliver.

This is categorically false. If you have large capacity needs talk to your TAMs/Account Manager and they can make it happen.

I've asked and got basically a "no". I can believe that if you have a history of spending big $$$ on AWS they get increasingly flexible with raising the limits. But if you don't, they aren't going to let you spin up 500 instances, even if you ask nicely and have a reasonable justification.