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Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

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Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#261

Post by bradknowles »

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#...

VMs on real Apple hardware isn’t a problem. Apple used VMware extensively on their internal infrastructure during the time I was a contractor for Apple Retail Software Engineering.

And Apple licenses their OS to be run under VMware on certain other hardware vendors, too. You just have to ask the right people.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#262

Post by bradknowles »

slimsag wrote: post #82
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#...

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...

They run much of their cloud on AWS and Azure and Google today. You can see that in their reports.

I don’t know that Apple will be able to make enough server-grade ARM-based chips or server class hardware using their chips, to be able to make a real impact on AWS and Google and Azure. They have never really understood the server market anyway.

I do think they will be able to roll out more of their own data centers for doing some of their most sensitive data processing, and more of the stuff that they consider to be core to their business, in kind of a hybrid/hybrid cloud model, but I think they’re always going to have most of their cloud actually hosted on AWS, Google, Azure, and other cloud providers.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#263

Post by bradknowles »

meatmanek wrote: post #86
DrBazza wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to ask the same thing. So if Apple don't make a rackable M1 server, what do they themselves use? It seems a bit unlikely Apple would have racks of minis as well.

According to a sysadmin I interviewed several years ago, they use standard x86 server hardware from other vendors like Dell. If I recall correctly (there's a good chance I'm misremembering), they ran something like VMware, and ran Linux and OS X in VMs.

When I worked as a contractor at Apple Retail Software Engineering, they bought for themselves the full final couple of shipments of thousands and thousands of the rack-mount Macs they had designed and built, and then ultimately killed. They filled a couple of data centers with them. And then they ran VMware on them so that they could have a lot more virtual Macs as servers.

They were also buying rack mount hardware from other vendors and running VMware on them, too. But I don’t remember what the vendors were that they were buying from. I doubt it would be Dell, given what Michael Dell said about Apple years ago, and the rivalry that has existed ever since. But I don’t know for sure.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#264

Post by bradknowles »

bstar77 wrote: post #158
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.

After my experience 3 years ago, I will never use them again. I priced out an instance that estimated around $30/month via their calculator. Instance is indeed around $30 for the first 2 months, then I get a $200 bill. I don't know what the hell happened, but it was over 6x what I had budgeted. I tried to get someone to review my account, but I didn't get a response and just had to suck it up. I paid the $200 and mov…

With AWS, you can set up billing rules to notify you of any charges over any limit you want, and you can break that down by service or overall charges, etc…. You learn a lot about this process when you become an AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner.

Sadly, they don’t turn these things on by default. You have to know about them in advance, and you have to know how to configure them. That’s one thing I wish they would improve.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#265

Post by bradknowles »

Kye wrote: post #219
LdSGSgvupDV wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I don't like to sign my credit card to any subscription service or anything similar. There is almost no way to delete the credit card, and it is hard to notice the charging before it happened. We should have legislation to make them offer one-shot charging without storing my payment information. Pay as my budget. Shutdown if exceed.

Privacy.com Doesn't cost anything, can use different bank accounts for funding on a per card basis, configurable limits.

Except they are in the process of changing their bank that they work with, so that they can change the type of cards they issue, and you have until the end of December to change over all your old cards from the old format to the new one, which means changing the card numbers, too.

This is a royal pain in the ass for those of us with hundreds of cards registered through them.

If there was another service of this type that existed, I’d switch to them in a heartbeat. And I will no longer recommend them here.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#266

Post by bradknowles »

andy_ppp wrote: post #151
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.

I think there is a class action law suit waiting to happen to be honest, it's clearly deliberate and everyone who has set up AWS personally is being charged $2-5 per month for services that are still running but they cannot find. As long as Jeff gets richer.

Jeff’s not in charge anymore. Andy Jassy is. And I think some things will be changing for the better with Andy.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#267

Post by bradknowles »

stavros wrote: post #196
imwillofficial wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use a prepaid credit card. Boom. Protected

privacy.com is great for this.

Except they are in the process of changing their bank that they work with, so that they can change the type of cards they issue, and you have until the end of December to change over all your old cards from the old format to the new one, which means changing the card numbers, too. This is a royal pain in the ass for those of us with hundreds of cards registered through them. If there was another service of this type that existed, I’d switch to them in a heartbeat. And I will no longer recommend them here.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#268

Post by Kye »

bradknowles wrote: post #265
Kye wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy.com Doesn't cost anything, can use different bank accounts for funding on a per card basis, configurable limits.

Except they are in the process of changing their bank that they work with, so that they can change the type of cards they issue, and you have until the end of December to change over all your old cards from the old format to the new one, which means changing the card numbers, too. This is a royal pain in the ass for those of us with hundreds of cards registered through them. If there was another service of this type…

1: That news popped up here after I posted this.

2: New accounts since around October are already on the new thing.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#269

Post by hparadiz »

Kye wrote: post #268
bradknowles wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they are in the process of changing their bank that they work with, so that they can change the type of cards they issue, and you have until the end of December to change over all your old cards from the old format to the new one, which means changing the card numbers, too. This is a royal pain in the ass for those of us with hundreds of cards registered through them. If there was another service of this type…

1: That news popped up here after I posted this. 2: New accounts since around October are already on the new thing.

It wouldn't work anyway cause I'd just have a large debt with them they'd eventually lock my account over.
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