Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I am building a cloud

crawshaw.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

561–570 of 589 posts

Re: I am building a cloud

#561

Post by psviderski »

ozim wrote: post #557
psviderski wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want to use K8s for one or two beefy servers? It's designed for solving a different problem at a large scale.

I think automatic scaling is useful to utilize server fully - apps that don't need resources automatically scale down, apps that need resources can auto scale up. I bet you can do it in some other way but that's built in feature of k8s.

There is very little reason to need auto-scaling when you run on pre-purchased VMs/servers. You've paid for all the compute so you can run as many replicas as it can fit and you need to handle the projected amount of traffic.

There are no benefits to scaling down in this case. And scaling up won't help handle more load if you've already allocated all resources to running replicas. You need more machines, not more replicas on the existing machine(s).

It all comes down to simple, boring capacity planning and static resource allocation. Fewer moving parts results in fewer failure modes, hence more robust infra and less ops and maintenance work.

Re: I am building a cloud

#562

Post by pvtmert »

delbronski wrote: post #87
clktmr wrote: post #49

> Agents, by making it easiest to write code, means there will be a lot more software. Economists would call this an instance of Jevons paradox. Each of us will write more programs, for fun and for work. There is already so much software out there, which isn't used by anyone. Just take a look at any appstore. I don't understand why we are so obsessed with cranking out even more, whereas the obvious usecase for LLMs s…

I think we, as engineers, are a bit stuck on what “software” has traditionally been. We think of systems that we carefully build, maintain, and update. Deterministic systems for interacting with computers. I think these “traditional” systems will still be around. But AI has already changed the way users interact with computers. This new interaction will give rise to another type of software. A more disposable type of…

the disposeware is here. maybe we can call it spongeware (similar to software) which is like a kitchen sponge, one uses it several times until it starts to break, just to be replaced with a similar but different one...

Re: I am building a cloud

#564

Post by ozim »

psviderski wrote: post #561
ozim wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think automatic scaling is useful to utilize server fully - apps that don't need resources automatically scale down, apps that need resources can auto scale up. I bet you can do it in some other way but that's built in feature of k8s.

There is very little reason to need auto-scaling when you run on pre-purchased VMs/servers. You've paid for all the compute so you can run as many replicas as it can fit and you need to handle the projected amount of traffic. There are no benefits to scaling down in this case. And scaling up won't help handle more load if you've already allocated all resources to running replicas. You need more machines, not more rep…

Your response seems like you are talking about a single product / single application.

You have apps A, B and C (you have N teams and N products) each developed by different teams - that you want to run on that one server, when app A doesn't have much traffic apps B and C can use more of compute. Then having deployment management aligned for all teams/products.

Re: I am building a cloud

#565

Post by pratyahava »

furyofantares wrote: post #366
hbhhh wrote: post #334

HeavyBit is absolutely gross. I've heard lots of horrible things about them from multiple founders. One of my friends was told to come to a sex party that was all male and he is straight. It soured his relationship with the firm so much he ended up winding down the business.

Does that any anything to do with exe.dev?

the first paragraph in the linked post says "Major investors are Amplify, CRV, and HeavyBit."

but i know nothing about what the comment says, just answering your question.

Re: I am building a cloud

#566

Post by elktown »

wutwutwat wrote: post #217
collimarco wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kubernetes is not bad, it's just low level. Most applications share the exact same needs (proof: you could run any web app on a simple platform like Heroku). That's why some years ago I built an open source tool (with 0 dependencies) that simplify Kubernetes deployments with a compact syntax which works well for 99% of web apps (instead of allowing any configuration, it makes many "opinionated" choices): https://gith…

It's not just low level, in most cases, it's also overkill. Most companies aren't "web scale" ™ and don't need an orchestrator built for google level elasticity, they need a vm autoscaling group if anything. Most apps don't need such granular control over fs access, network policies, root access, etc, they need `ufw allow 80 && ufw enable` Most apps don't need a 15 stage, docker layer caching optimized, archive promo…

I'm afraid the bloat is too lucrative for everyone involved.

Re: I am building a cloud

#567

Post by cush »

edot wrote: post #224
cush wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand why we are so obsessed with cranking out even more... the obvious usecase for LLMs should be to write better software I honestly think this is ideal. Video games aside, I think one day we'll look back and realize just how insane it was that we built software for millions or even billions of users to use. People can now finally build the software that does exactly what they've wanted their softwar…

I don't think this will be true for average consumers. Perhaps for nerds like us, who enjoy a bit of tinkering and can put up with weird behaviors. I mean, are you envisioning that everyone would have their own custom messaging app, for example? Or email? Or banking app? I mean, I think most people's demands for those things are all extremely homogenous. I want messages to arrive, I want emails to get spam filtered a…

> Perhaps for nerds like us, who enjoy a bit of tinkering

Tinkering? Even today, people don’t need to understand software. They just need to be able to describe their problems and goals to create an app.

> I mean, are you envisioning that everyone would have their own custom messaging app, for example? Or email?

Well first I think there’s a good chance that most apps as we know them today won’t even exist, and most “apps” will be tool use on APIs. But even then, shopping apps, for example, could be so highly personalized that no two people have the same one.

> I mean, I think most people's demands for those things are all extremely homogenous.

They aren’t, as evidenced by the fact there are many dozens of popular messaging apps with millions of users. Despite the network effects for a messaging app to even be viable.

Also, I’m not talking one-off throwaway apps… these are living, breathing pieces of production-grade software users will mold to fit their needs and evolve with them for years.

I’m not sure what “totally fresh” means

Re: I am building a cloud

#568

Post by mrhottakes »

dajonker wrote: post #74

> Making Kubernetes good is inherently impossible, a project in putting (admittedly high quality) lipstick on a pig. So well put, my good sir, this describes exactly my feelings with k8s. It always starts off all good with just managing a couple of containers to run your web app. Then before you know it, the devops folks have decided that they need to put a gazillion other services and an entire software-defined netw…

Yep, when you use the wrong tool for the job it doesn't work very well

Re: I am building a cloud

#569

Post by mrhottakes »

mynameisash wrote: post #428
dajonker wrote: post #74

> Making Kubernetes good is inherently impossible, a project in putting (admittedly high quality) lipstick on a pig. So well put, my good sir, this describes exactly my feelings with k8s. It always starts off all good with just managing a couple of containers to run your web app. Then before you know it, the devops folks have decided that they need to put a gazillion other services and an entire software-defined netw…

My first and really only experience with Kubernetes was a project I did about six years ago. I was tasked with building a thing that did some lightly distributed compute using Python + Dask. I was able to cobble together a functioning (internal) product, and we went to production. Not long after, I found that the pods were CONSTANTLY getting into some weird state where K8s couldn't rebuild, so I had to forcibly delet…

Why on earth would you use kubernetes for that application in the first place?

Re: I am building a cloud

#570

Post by mrhottakes »

d_burfoot wrote: post #458

I'm not sure if this is the direction the OP is going, but I would love to see a world where local small-time investors can get a bank loan, rent a facility, set up a bunch of computers, and run open-source cloud software on them that provides 95% of the features that most businesses need. Running a cloud data center could be a business like operating a self-storage facility or a car wash. Small investors love this k…

then private equity moves in, buys up the small and inefficient local data centers, and consolidates them into a massive conglomerate that can charge whatever they want
Post reply on HN