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AWS to bare metal two years later: Answering your questions about leaving AWS

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Re: AWS to bare metal two years later: Answering your questions about leaving AWS

#431

I feel like it just depends on what you’re trying to do. * data driven website with some internal api integration, maybe some client-side application or tooling? Put a server rack in a closet and get a fiber line. * trying to serve the general public in a bursty, not-cacheable way? Probably going to have to carry a lot of machines that usually don’t do much, cloud might make more sense * lots of ingress or DNS rules?…

> In general once you start thinking about scaling data to larger capacities is when you start considering the cloud

What kind of capacities as a rule of thumb would you use? You can fit an awful lot of storage and compute on a single rack, and the cost for large DBs on AWS and others is extremely high, so savings are larger as well.

Re: AWS to bare metal two years later: Answering your questions about leaving AWS

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Managing a complex environment is hard, no matter whether that’s deployed on AWS or on prem. You always need skilled workers. On one platform you need k8s experts. On the other platform you need AWS experts. Let’s not pretend like AWS is a simple one-click fire and forget solution. And let’s be very real here: if your cloud service goes down for a few hours because you screwed something up, or because AWS deployed so…

Maybe I've drank the koolaid but I've done both a lot of systems level work and AWS work (I don't actually use any AWS stuff in my role here interestingly) and I think for a business that needs a handful of hosts in 2 AZs I can't imagine the ROI and risk profile being better to self host. AWS truly does let you focus on your business logic and abstracts a TON of undifferentiated work and well beyond the low hanging f…

I'm wondering if changes to tax and accounting rules for CapEx is what really sent companies to the cloud. I do know that a lot of VC-backed companies don't want to own anything physical because that's a problem to be solved by the company that acquires them a few years down the road.

Re: AWS to bare metal two years later: Answering your questions about leaving AWS

#433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but also really funny considering that even today the average windows sysadmin can still barely use powershell and relies on console clicking and batch scripts. A good unix admin can easily admin 10-100x the machines as a windows admin, and this was more true back in the early 00s. So the marketing on getting the facts was absolutely false.

Citation needed on that one. I've only worked with a minority of Windows sysadmins who are as incompetent as you say. And yeah, of course a good unix admin can run circles around a bad windows one, but the converse is just as true. A good Windows admin can run circles around a bad unix one. It has nothing to do with the operating systems and everything to do with technical competence of the individual.

There are a LOT more bad windows admins than bad unix admins though. The floor of being a unix admin is so much higher that it already filters out a lot of people. There are so many MSPs and small businesses with a windows admin that does everything through a console its crazy. You are right its all about the admin, but on average, the average linux admin is far more comfortable scripting than the windows admin.

Re: AWS to bare metal two years later: Answering your questions about leaving AWS

#434
“ $600/month for NAT gateways”

I build my own NAT instances from Debian Trixie with Packer. The configuration is literally a few lines:

    sudo iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o ens5 -j MASQUERADE
    sudo iptables -F FORWARD
    sudo iptables -A FORWARD -i ens5 -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
    sudo iptables -A FORWARD -o ens5 -j ACCEPT

    sudo iptables-save | sudo tee /etc/iptables/rules.v4 > /dev/null

Re: AWS to bare metal two years later: Answering your questions about leaving AWS

#435
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London had the tube bombings, but there is no security scanning there.

AFAIK, there is no security scanning on the metro/"tube" in Spain either, it's on the national train lines. Edit: Also, after looking it up, it seems like London did add temporary security scanners at some locations in the wake of those bombings, although they weren't permanent. Russia is the only other European country besides Spain that after train bombings added permanent security scanners. Belgium, France and a b…

Not true, France had this on the train to the Netherlands (Thalys) after some crazy attacked some passengers in that train. They also added electronic gates to most high speed trains in many large stations.

Notice how these inefficient processes create large, compact lines of passengers, which would made the casualties much worse in case of an actual bomb.

Re: AWS to bare metal two years later: Answering your questions about leaving AWS

#436
post #11

I'm so surprised there is so much pushback against this.. AWS is extremely expensive. The use cases for setting up your system or service entirely in AWS are more rare than people seem to realise. Maybe I'm just the old man screaming at cloud (no pun intended) but when did people forget how to run a baremetal server ? > We have 730+ days with 99.993% measured availability and we also escaped AWS region wide downtime…

> I'm so surprised there is so much pushback against this.. AWS is extremely expensive. I see more comments in favor than pushing back. The problem I have with these stories is the confirmation bias that comes with them. Going self-hosted or on-premises does make sense in some carefully selected use cases, but I have dozens of stories of startup teams spinning their wheels with self-hosting strategies that turn into…

Rarely do startups fail because of a decision like self hosting or not. In many cases it isnt even a few bad decisions but a long series of them plus outside factors which are uncontrollable.

In my experience the aws problem isnt so much that aws is that costly relative to bare metal but that most people do not execute well on aws over provisioning like mad to solve design issues.

There is a perverse benefit to sales at aws to push nonsense product too because of incentives. But people forget that aws isnt even as bad as a ton of other company spend. I have seen a fortune 100 add a few mm to their annual salesforce contract “for funnzies” because at their scale it wasnt that much money.

Re: AWS to bare metal two years later: Answering your questions about leaving AWS

#437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Cloud sellers new this: Happy path for this flagship project, the shinny new object, and some additional services. After the point of no return what usually happens is, that cloud will be a replica of bare metal development. As an Computer Science dude and former C64/Amiga coder in Senior Management of a large international Bank, I saw first hand, how cost balloon simply due to the fact, that the bank recreates…

Ferrari actually makes tractors.

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Re: AWS to bare metal two years later: Answering your questions about leaving AWS

#438
post #11

I'm so surprised there is so much pushback against this.. AWS is extremely expensive. The use cases for setting up your system or service entirely in AWS are more rare than people seem to realise. Maybe I'm just the old man screaming at cloud (no pun intended) but when did people forget how to run a baremetal server ? > We have 730+ days with 99.993% measured availability and we also escaped AWS region wide downtime…

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Re: AWS to bare metal two years later: Answering your questions about leaving AWS

#440
post #317
post #11

I'm so surprised there is so much pushback against this.. AWS is extremely expensive. The use cases for setting up your system or service entirely in AWS are more rare than people seem to realise. Maybe I'm just the old man screaming at cloud (no pun intended) but when did people forget how to run a baremetal server ? > We have 730+ days with 99.993% measured availability and we also escaped AWS region wide downtime…

> I'm so surprised there is so much pushback against this.. AWS is extremely expensive. Basic rationalization. People will go to extraordinary lengths to justify and defend the choices they made. It's a defense mechanism: if they spent millions on AWS they are not going to sit idly while HN discusses saving hundreds of thousands with everyone nodding and agreeing. It's important for their own sanity to defend the cho…

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