31–40 of 67 posts
All mentioned things aside, memory-intensive cloud hosted service, like memcached or redis, provider prices are just too damn high ($400/mo for 2GB?). I've found app server and/or worker pricing to be relatively okay.
The delusion I have, which he didn't address, is that the price/performance ratio is atrocious. Sticking with Heroku, the $3200/m Ronin DB could essentially be a 1-time purchase if you are collocating, or 1/10th the monthly price if you go dedicated.
Exactly, I have yet to find a cloud hosting service with a price that makes sense to me.
The tl;dr version: Cloud services have exogenous risks that you can't control but trying to avoid them is wrong. Absolutely false! If your company stands to lose $10,000/hr for every hour it's not operating (and that's a LOT of businesses) then the idea that "oh we'll just trust Amazon for this, what could possibly go wrong?!" is fairly short-sighted. Yes Amazon will work to fix things as fast as they possibly can bu…
My comment is still awaiting moderation. Curious, since there are other posts after I commented. Oh well, here's the repeat: tl;dr : Disagreement != insanity. Your unwillingness to accept possibilities you haven't encountered or avoided doesn't mean those possibilities don't exist or can always be avoided. Point #1: Bandwidth + power is sometimes cheaper than bandwidth + CPU cycle costs in many cases. If you have a m…
What if instead you hear back "Sorry, I already tried turning on the generators but they are not working. What should I do now?"
The delusion I have, which he didn't address, is that the price/performance ratio is atrocious. Sticking with Heroku, the $3200/m Ronin DB could essentially be a 1-time purchase if you are collocating, or 1/10th the monthly price if you go dedicated.
The cost of the database to an enterprise is not dominated by how much the license for the software costs, the hardware costs, or the electricity costs. It is dominated by how much you have to pay in headcount to manage it. At many companies, that app would have two people whose full-time job would be "Do everything Heroku ops would do, except slower and suckier." I get this same question from some potential customer…
1) Many companies already have most of these skills, or can acquire them cheaply and reliably via a service contract. The cloud isn't the only way to outsource operations.
2) The performance/reliability constraints imposed by certain popular cloud platforms can create very expensive development work, distracting developers from doing things that actually create value for customers.
I worked with a successful firm that was close to outgrowing their dedicated server and was considering going cloud. They sketched out an architecture that would get everything to fit into nice little EC2-shaped pieces. But there was a problem: it would take a ton of developer time.
Instead, they spent a fraction of the expected developer cost on some serious hardware, and they were done nigh on instantly. Their developers then used that saved time to do things that actually delivered more value to the customers.
The cloud is awesome when it fits, but it doesn't always fit.
Revrend!!!
My comment is still awaiting moderation. Curious, since there are other posts after I commented. Oh well, here's the repeat: tl;dr : Disagreement != insanity. Your unwillingness to accept possibilities you haven't encountered or avoided doesn't mean those possibilities don't exist or can always be avoided. Point #1: Bandwidth + power is sometimes cheaper than bandwidth + CPU cycle costs in many cases. If you have a m…
> There's something very comforting about saying "Hey, Mary. We just lost power and we're running backups. Could you make sure the generators kick in?" and hearing back, "Sure, I'm on it." What if instead you hear back "Sorry, I already tried turning on the generators but they are not working. What should I do now?"
Well I guess you quit in disgrace, because it is your job to ensure you have a viable fallback, and the personnel to make it happen.
My comment is still awaiting moderation. Curious, since there are other posts after I commented. Oh well, here's the repeat: tl;dr : Disagreement != insanity. Your unwillingness to accept possibilities you haven't encountered or avoided doesn't mean those possibilities don't exist or can always be avoided. Point #1: Bandwidth + power is sometimes cheaper than bandwidth + CPU cycle costs in many cases. If you have a m…
> There's something very comforting about saying "Hey, Mary. We just lost power and we're running backups. Could you make sure the generators kick in?" and hearing back, "Sure, I'm on it." What if instead you hear back "Sorry, I already tried turning on the generators but they are not working. What should I do now?"
We did have a generator truck on site during hurricane Sandy though, since at the time, were weren't sure if the local generators actually would kick in. This is a real problem with standby generators since they're very rarely used (ideally never needed) so they need constant service or need to run occasionally. It's like a car; if you don't use it for too long, it may not start.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/10/building-servers-fo...
While I see the value in making things more flexible and cheap like the open compute initiative, my cynicism has taught me to assume every time that what is heavily promoted this way by a entity that tries to position itself as the middleman - it may not be bad for you, but it rarely will be the best for you.
How many people think twice before handing sensitive info to google after the David Petraeus situation.
The cloud infrastructure is just a tool - it has its limited uses, its gotcha-s etc. It is good for prototyping, rapid deployment but after that - not so sure.
The tl;dr version: Cloud services have exogenous risks that you can't control but trying to avoid them is wrong. Absolutely false! If your company stands to lose $10,000/hr for every hour it's not operating (and that's a LOT of businesses) then the idea that "oh we'll just trust Amazon for this, what could possibly go wrong?!" is fairly short-sighted. Yes Amazon will work to fix things as fast as they possibly can bu…
And how much des the alternative cost? I'm not even sure what the alternative is, building your own data center?