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Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

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Re: Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

#31

Post by baranul »

dehrmann wrote: post #5

> She would pay AWS in dollars even as Okra earned in naira because American cloud providers did not accept payments in local currency at the time. > The payments to AWS gradually skyrocketed as the naira depreciated around 70% against the dollar between 2020 and 2024. > Combine that with Nigeria’s economic challenges — rising inflation and forex volatility > Ashiru took things into her own hands, and Okra set up clo…

The data sovereignty argument is likely more than just interesting, but can be essential to their startups surviving in the future. Who can look at and do what with the data, can be the difference between a country or region keeping a thriving infrastructure or having to outsource an entire related chain to somewhere else that can dictate terms or not be in their best interest.

Just as EU companies have the option of using only EU data centers, African countries can make the same argument for equivalent options, where AU companies (African Union) do the same.

Re: Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

#32

Post by t0mas88 »

dehrmann wrote: post #5

> She would pay AWS in dollars even as Okra earned in naira because American cloud providers did not accept payments in local currency at the time. > The payments to AWS gradually skyrocketed as the naira depreciated around 70% against the dollar between 2020 and 2024. > Combine that with Nigeria’s economic challenges — rising inflation and forex volatility > Ashiru took things into her own hands, and Okra set up clo…

That last part has been announced, but not released yet. Amazon calls is AWS European Sovereign Cloud, see here for details: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-plans-to-invest-e7...

Re: Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

#33

Post by robertlagrant »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #24
kjs3 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah...you're not really building an 'AWS' until you're building a hyperscaler and leveraging massive economies of scale. This is more "we're building a service that addressed local reality with local solutions", and that's a pretty awesome thing just in itself.

> you're not really building an 'AWS' until you're building a hyperscaler AFAICT there's no claim that they're "building an AWS" (or attempting to). The title is "Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud". So, these are alternatives and a skim of the article seems to follow. I think we've been cloud-indoctrinated here (until recently) to believe viability means fullly-scalable cloud infr…

I don't see the real difference between saying this and saying a Raspberry Pi is an alternative to AWS.

Re: Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

#34

Post by unclebucknasty »

graemep wrote: post #30
unclebucknasty wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Looking at the websites of those companies, I also wouldn't characterize them as AWS or Google Cloud competitors I'd say they're more "alternatives" at this point, as the article's title states. But... > They offer Virtual Private Servers, FTP storage, maybe an S3 equivalent and Kubernetes. The number of AWS customers that could survive on these services alone is likely higher than we'd suspect, especially for smal…

> The number of AWS customers that could survive on these services alone is likely higher than we'd suspect, especially for small companies They could, but they will not.If your AWS is small there is no real motive to look for alternatives. Just stick with the brand you know. Even a lot of developers are very resistant to using something 'non-standard'.I have had "thats a weird thing to do" reactions to suggestions s…

>They could, but they will not.

I intended to say "the number of AWS customers that currently survive on these services alone...". I've updated the comment.

My comment was aimed more at those who assume that providers offering only these services would mean they're technically non-competitive with AWS.

My overall point is that these services likely represent what many customers are actually using. If you're in an enterprise shop, this may be less true. Same if you're in a funded startup that's convinced it needs infinite scalability and architects accordingly.

But, I do agree that it's hard to convince people to resist the dogma. This may be changing as people are starting to question the value of Big Cloud vs its costs, but we'll have to wait for the dogma to follow to see any real change (for those who have access to Big Cloud).

Re: Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

#35

Post by snailmailstare »

sepositus wrote: post #15
wongarsu wrote: post #7

> While setting up a data center can cost millions of dollars, small Nigerian teams have found a workaround to this with “colocation” Isn't that what everyone does when starting up a hosting company? Looking at the websites of those companies, I also wouldn't characterize them as AWS or Google Cloud competitors. They offer Virtual Private Servers, FTP storage, maybe an S3 equivalent and Kubernetes. Maybe we can talk…

We're pretty far into the "ditching cloud" hype cycle at the moment. While I think both sides have valid arguments, I think the whole drama tends to lead to unhelpful titles like this one. Using this same criteria, I'm "building an affordable alternative to AWS" in my house by deploying an HA instance of Proxmox.

I don't think revenue numbers reflect that we are in a ditching the cloud hype cycle, particularly given emerging political risks.. At any given time there is hype for every possibility with controversy or ramifications and the software market is so much larger than what many of us were used to that any group seems large enough to be most of the market.

Re: Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

#36

Post by unclebucknasty »

robertlagrant wrote: post #33
unclebucknasty wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you're not really building an 'AWS' until you're building a hyperscaler AFAICT there's no claim that they're "building an AWS" (or attempting to). The title is "Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud". So, these are alternatives and a skim of the article seems to follow. I think we've been cloud-indoctrinated here (until recently) to believe viability means fullly-scalable cloud infr…

I don't see the real difference between saying this and saying a Raspberry Pi is an alternative to AWS.

You're correct that there's an analogy continuum here that starts at "ridiculous" and ends with "nearly indistinguishable".

I suppose like many things, it's down to a reasonableness test.

Re: Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

#37

Post by sepositus »

snailmailstare wrote: post #35
sepositus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're pretty far into the "ditching cloud" hype cycle at the moment. While I think both sides have valid arguments, I think the whole drama tends to lead to unhelpful titles like this one. Using this same criteria, I'm "building an affordable alternative to AWS" in my house by deploying an HA instance of Proxmox.

I don't think revenue numbers reflect that we are in a ditching the cloud hype cycle, particularly given emerging political risks.. At any given time there is hype for every possibility with controversy or ramifications and the software market is so much larger than what many of us were used to that any group seems large enough to be most of the market.

Oh, I agree entirely with you. When I say hype, I mean there's a lot of positivity around these "We left the cloud" blog posts. I sit in a position within my company where I make these types of decisions (how our infrastructure is provisioned), and every few weeks or so for the past year I've gotten sent some blog post about X company moving off the cloud and reaping Y benefits.

I estimate that many of these cases were self-inflicted with a general misunderstanding of the cloud pricing model. Amazon has a literal pipeline (AKA certificate program) to maximize its revenue. It's so bad that I now include interview questions trying to suss these individuals out (design me X system, and the given solution uses 15 different AWS services).

Now, that's not an entirely fair representation of the problem, as I've seen genuine business cases that shouldn't be in the cloud, period. That's why I say both sides have an argument. But as I said, my opinion is that actual cloud revenue suggests that it's just a vocal minority group spinning up most of the discussions.

Re: Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

#38

Post by abdullahkhalids »

kjs3 wrote: post #16
unclebucknasty wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a reliable modular datacenter construction technique that allows for easy scaling/expansion? Seems that could have a dramatic impact on bringing these within reach.

Sun had their 'modular data center' concept[1], which was a self contained DC in a standard shipping container. You could chain them together. It wasn't obscenely expensive relatively speaking as I recall. I'm not sure if Sun was 'first', but these days there are all sorts of companies that do the same thing (I was recently in one from Delta). I don't know if they are applicable to the reality on the ground in Nigeri…

Very cool. Huwawai also made a similar thing [1], called the FusionModule1000A All-in-One Container Data Center. But interestingly (as far as I can tell) without any compute, just power, cooling, safety etc. Presumably costs about a million USD [2].

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20170709195517/https://e.huawei....

[2] https://www.finditprice.com/index/it_product/search.html?pro...

Re: Nigerians are building affordable alternatives to AWS and Google Cloud

#40

Post by gregw2 »

kittikitti wrote: post #11

Amazon, which was originally planned to be named "Ruthless", will see this as an existential threat and use the full force of their Big Tech allies to make sure they have no additional competition. I support their cloud services and know that Big Tech collusion on cloud infrastructure will be nearly impossible to avoid. There must be more decentralized solutions and I'm proud of Nigeria for innovating when Silicon Va…

Err. I think you meant Amazon planned to be named "Relentless" (and then Cadabra).

Bezos did register "Relentless.com" and it redirects to amazon.com to this day.

Other early name alternatives were: Awake.com (still works), Browse.com (still works) and Bookmall.com (doesn't work).

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