Troubles with the AWS web console • Hacker News Board

Re: Troubles with the AWS web console

#51

Post by lidHanteyk » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 12:17 PM UTC

mk89 wrote: post #10

jrockway wrote: post #2

I am pretty sure the AWS business model is to get you to write your own code that interacts with the API so that when you think about switching to another provider, you realize that you're throwing away months of work and decide not to. They also make the API requests take so many parameters that are specific to your particular use case that nobody will ever be able to write a generic tool that does what you want. Ev…

> I am pretty sure the AWS business model is to get you to write your own code that interacts with the API so that when you think about switching to another provider, you realize that you're throwing away months of work and decide not to. Same applies to all other cloud providers. Typically, you solve this problem partially with tools like Terraform, etc. However, of course there is never a one-size-fits-all solution…

No, the same does not apply to all other cloud providers. Earlier this year, I had a moment where I wrote a Kubernetes definition for one public cloud provider, and then was able to reuse the definition on three other public clouds. Portability via Kubernetes and CNCF is real, AWS is lock-in.

Also, do you really want to support Amazon's human-rights-abuse parade?

Re: Troubles with the AWS web console

#52

Post by ppod » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 12:19 PM UTC

I'm a solo academic researcher user and there's one thing even simpler than this that i can't stand: there is no way to check which EC2 resources are running all at once. You have to click on every single region in turn to see what is actually running. If you've had multiple types running across regions, trying shut everything down without closing the account is a real pain. I am not the only person with this problem: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/42086712/how-to-see-all-...

Re: Troubles with the AWS web console

#53

Post by postit » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 12:27 PM UTC

adreamingsoul wrote: post #44

These comments are fascinating to me. I was responsible for designing, leading, and building the frontend for an AWS service. One of the challenges was with obtaining useful feedback from a diverse range of people. During the product definition phase, the majority of the feedback, input, and feature priority was for customers who were planning to dedicate a large budget towards using said service. I often felt that s…

> universal thinking within AWS is that people will ultimately use the API/CLI/SDK

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) - But still 99% of tutorials and documentation refer to the UI.

Re: Troubles with the AWS web console

#54

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 12:27 PM UTC

drchewbacca wrote: post #4

I hate AWS so much. I spent 3 hours trying to get a bucket to host a static single page of html and failed completely. I use amazon polly. I wanted to know how many characters I was using each month. I spent 2 hours searching through hundreds of pages and literally couldn't find that information. I thought of trying to start a little text to speech service for dyslexics to make it easy to use Polly but one of the mai…

[deleted]

Re: Troubles with the AWS web console

#55

Post by 40four » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 12:27 PM UTC

I've never liked the web console much either. Never found it very intuitive, or easy to use. But, once you navigate the maze, & learn where the few things you need are, it does get the job done. And to be fair it is fast.

Not sure why, but for some reason I like clicking around in the web app, so makes me wish it was a better experience. In contrast, compare this to the Digital Ocean web console. It has beautiful design that is nice to look at. It's un-complicated & clutter free. Overall a very pleasurable web app, I've always been inpressed with their UX.

But as people have pointed out, it seems Amazon expects us to use the CLI & APIs, and the web console is not a priority. So maybe I'll start moving in that direction with my AWS services.

Re: Troubles with the AWS web console

#56

Post by lentil » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 12:33 PM UTC

postit wrote: post #53

adreamingsoul wrote: post #44

These comments are fascinating to me. I was responsible for designing, leading, and building the frontend for an AWS service. One of the challenges was with obtaining useful feedback from a diverse range of people. During the product definition phase, the majority of the feedback, input, and feature priority was for customers who were planning to dedicate a large budget towards using said service. I often felt that s…

> universal thinking within AWS is that people will ultimately use the API/CLI/SDK ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) - But still 99% of tutorials and documentation refer to the UI.

To be fair, the AWS documentation nearly always covers both.

Re: Troubles with the AWS web console

#57

Post by sdan » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 12:36 PM UTC

timc3 wrote: post #37

slovenlyrobot wrote: post #20

Since starting to use Google Cloud for bits and pieces I've come to appreciate the AWS UI approach much more than previously. All those little spartan pockets of UI means nothing gets overengineered, the tools feel more like a quick Intranet web app (and generally load as quickly!) than anything else Meanwhile over in GCloud, almost /any/ operation whatsoever will spam you with an endless series of progress meters, m…

Total opposite experience. AWS UI is slow, workflow is terrible. Google cloud is much better. Mind you once you get to a certain point using the APIs is better.

Agree. Having used both GCP and AWS, I like GCP's UI a lot more than AWS's huge dropdowns and constant usage of the search bar.

Re: Troubles with the AWS web console

#58

Post by lentil » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 12:38 PM UTC

sho wrote: post #36

mk89 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your level of experience with ops/networking etc.? Because it all boils down to that. If you need a simpler service, maybe you could use digital ocean etc...

Technically you're right of course but I think you miss the broader point. AWS is ludicrously complicated and overkill for most startups, like a corner store implementing SAP. The problem is it's the gold standard for "cloud" and choosing anything else (apart from GCS, perhaps) attracts the need for justifications and, ultimately, unwelcome accountability. "Nobody ever got fired for [choosing AWS]". I'd personally lo…

> I'd personally love it if AWS implemented a digital ocean-like "basic" interface which, realistically, covers 90% of startups' needs. Simple is good.

Have you looked at Amazon Lightsail? It might be closer to what you're after.

https://aws.amazon.com/lightsail/

Re: Troubles with the AWS web console

#59

Post by itomato » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 12:43 PM UTC

sho wrote: post #36

mk89 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your level of experience with ops/networking etc.? Because it all boils down to that. If you need a simpler service, maybe you could use digital ocean etc...

Technically you're right of course but I think you miss the broader point. AWS is ludicrously complicated and overkill for most startups, like a corner store implementing SAP. The problem is it's the gold standard for "cloud" and choosing anything else (apart from GCS, perhaps) attracts the need for justifications and, ultimately, unwelcome accountability. "Nobody ever got fired for [choosing AWS]". I'd personally lo…

Your startup on AWS is either capable of developing their platform in house or contracting one of many solution architects.

They may be so lean they exclusively run lambda jobs and host from S3. This is a 24 hour learning curve.

Re: Troubles with the AWS web console

#60

Post by m0xte » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 12:45 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #39

m0xte wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uploading to S3 is easy until it isn't. It works pretty nicely for one-offs but when you have to blast a few hundred gigs into it or large files from a bit of software you wrote it's a royal pain in the butt. The phrase "multi-part upload" makes me cry inside.

Why is that hard? The CLI automatically does multi part uploads. It’s also simple with the various AWS SDKs.

It looks like it works but it's not reliable so your reliability concerns then get externalised into your application which multiplies complexity terribly.