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Why we are not leaving the cloud

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Re: Why we are not leaving the cloud

#61

Post by tomkinstinch »

clarkmoody wrote: post #55
tbrowbdidnso wrote: post #34

So everyone says the cloud is the future. I get it. But is this the truth, or what all the tech giants want people to believe? Don your foil hats for a moment and listen to me. All the original internet companies run their own hardware. They rent out excess production capacity to us peons in the form of cloud services. These companies that all run their own hardware exclusively are telling everyone that it's stupid t…

Don't forget to take the tinfoil off when you're done ;-) What are some examples of companies that started in the cloud then switched to their own metal? Surely there are some blog posts about costs before & after?

Dropbox switched from S3 to their own in-house hardware:

https://www.wired.com/2016/03/epic-story-dropboxs-exodus-ama...

Re: Why we are not leaving the cloud

#62

Post by morgante »

tbrowbdidnso wrote: post #56
morgante wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and the costs of cloud service are zooming up, potentially leaving you without the margin to invest. What do you mean by this, because it sounds like a straight up lie? Amazon and Google are in an ongoing price war and cut costs regularly.

Possibly outgoing bandwidth. These costs are directly proportional to traffic and regularly 20-30x the unmetered rate for a colocated box

Yes, cloud bandwidth is expensive. I don't disagree with that. But it's not increasing in price.

Obviously if you're growing your costs will grow, but that's basically a tautology. Bare metal costs also rise as you grow.

Re: Why we are not leaving the cloud

#63

Post by tbrowbdidnso »

morgante wrote: post #43
tbrowbdidnso wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing hard about running hardware. The current VM trend gives you bare metal access. the only difference is you have to plug in your machines, and you get to look at them every once in a while. Really, what software dev hasn't put together a desktop PC and plugged in some Ethernet jacks? That's all you need to Colocate. Your response echos what cloud providers want everyone to think. Hardware is too hard f…

I'm sorry, but your comments in this thread are incredibly out of touch. It's absolutely hard to run your own hardware. There's a reason that companies which run their own hardware have entire teams devoted to it. You seem to be thinking like an engineer, not a business person. For most businesses, cloud providers offer a substantial cost savings.

I know it's a controversial opinion. And probably not even true in a lot of cases... but I'm glad it sounds like I'm out in left field.

The echo chamber needs a devil's advocate and sometimes the resulting discussion gets interesting enough that I question my original beliefs.

In this case I believe owning my hardware is cheaper for me because I already do. I might be a rarity though, or just old fashioned and wrong

Re: Why we are not leaving the cloud

#64

Post by Isamu »

nnutter wrote: post #53
tbrowbdidnso wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running on rented hardware is the equivalent of a traditional product company renting all of their factories. Almost any company of reasonable size will want vertical integration of their supply chain and web companies are no different. Using Netflix as an example again, if they're pitted against a company that runs their own hardware but is otherwise equal, they will lose. A portion of their profit is siphoned off a…

Does Apple own any factories?

Actually they own a lot of very expensive equipment that their subcontractors operate for them. E.g. all those CNC milling machines for their phones/laptops/watches. These capital expenditures were a bit steep for their subcontractors, so this creates a kind of symbiotic relationship.

Re: Why we are not leaving the cloud

#65

Post by morgante »

tbrowbdidnso wrote: post #42
closeparen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's in doubt that it makes sense to own everything from the land to the silicon when you're the size of one of these "original internet companies." The question is, does it make sense for businesses with a handful of servers running their office environment, to a few thousand servers running production for a moderately popular web service, to pay consultants to drive out and tend the servers in their o…

Running on rented hardware is the equivalent of a traditional product company renting all of their factories. Almost any company of reasonable size will want vertical integration of their supply chain and web companies are no different. Using Netflix as an example again, if they're pitted against a company that runs their own hardware but is otherwise equal, they will lose. A portion of their profit is siphoned off a…

> Running on rented hardware is the equivalent of a traditional product company renting all of their factories.

Correct.

Traditional product companies very rarely own all their own factories.

Do you honestly think Netflix management is incompetent? They've run the numbers on this countless times. They have way more insight into their spend and operations than a random anonymous internet commentator.

Re: Why we are not leaving the cloud

#66

Post by tbrowbdidnso »

throwtotheway wrote: post #46
tbrowbdidnso wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing hard about running hardware. The current VM trend gives you bare metal access. the only difference is you have to plug in your machines, and you get to look at them every once in a while. Really, what software dev hasn't put together a desktop PC and plugged in some Ethernet jacks? That's all you need to Colocate. Your response echos what cloud providers want everyone to think. Hardware is too hard f…

You're comparing a home desktop (or a single data center) to a battle tested globally accessible infrastructure. With experts running it. Yes that's a loaded statement but so is comparing "the cloud" to "a desktop".

Google ran on desktop computers for a long time. If anything, the cloud is less reliable than individual machines once were. You have no control over when or why one of your VM's goes down, and there's nothing you can do but wait and hope everything comes back in short order.

I've had degraded instances screw my customers websites many many times in AWS. On our VMware cluster I never have any such issues because I make sure not to touch anything running production sites

Re: Why we are not leaving the cloud

#67

Post by dsr_ »

morgante wrote: post #62
tbrowbdidnso wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly outgoing bandwidth. These costs are directly proportional to traffic and regularly 20-30x the unmetered rate for a colocated box

Yes, cloud bandwidth is expensive. I don't disagree with that. But it's not increasing in price. Obviously if you're growing your costs will grow, but that's basically a tautology. Bare metal costs also rise as you grow.

Will you stop calling me a liar if I correct that from "the costs" to "your costs"? I am assuming that you are growing, and I think there's a provable assumption that for high levels of service, hiring someone else to do it is more expensive than in-house.

Re: Why we are not leaving the cloud

#68

Post by keepper »

morgante wrote: post #65
tbrowbdidnso wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running on rented hardware is the equivalent of a traditional product company renting all of their factories. Almost any company of reasonable size will want vertical integration of their supply chain and web companies are no different. Using Netflix as an example again, if they're pitted against a company that runs their own hardware but is otherwise equal, they will lose. A portion of their profit is siphoned off a…

> Running on rented hardware is the equivalent of a traditional product company renting all of their factories. Correct. Traditional product companies very rarely own all their own factories. Do you honestly think Netflix management is incompetent? They've run the numbers on this countless times. They have way more insight into their spend and operations than a random anonymous internet commentator.

Netflix runs their most expensive part (pushing those terrabits of traffic ), with their own hardware and network. https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/

so, you were saying?

Or do you think facebook,google,aol,tripadvisor and pretty much anyone beside HotNewStartup are incompetent?

Re: Why we are not leaving the cloud

#69

Post by morgante »

tbrowbdidnso wrote: post #63
morgante wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but your comments in this thread are incredibly out of touch. It's absolutely hard to run your own hardware. There's a reason that companies which run their own hardware have entire teams devoted to it. You seem to be thinking like an engineer, not a business person. For most businesses, cloud providers offer a substantial cost savings.

I know it's a controversial opinion. And probably not even true in a lot of cases... but I'm glad it sounds like I'm out in left field. The echo chamber needs a devil's advocate and sometimes the resulting discussion gets interesting enough that I question my original beliefs. In this case I believe owning my hardware is cheaper for me because I already do. I might be a rarity though, or just old fashioned and wrong

Your opinion isn't really that original. There are plenty of old-school sysadmins who will insist that the cloud is a hoax. They'll fight tooth and nail to avoid it. Eventually, someone fires them and moves to the cloud with significant savings.

There are some scenarios where it makes sense to run bare metal, but they're few and far between. If you've evaluated the (capital, operational, and human) costs of cloud vs. bare metal and bare metal came out on top, that's fine. But don't assume that other mature businesses haven't also done so.

For companies with AWS bills less than $10k/m, it'd be ludicrous to even consider bare metal.

Re: Why we are not leaving the cloud

#70

Post by stinkytaco »

tbrowbdidnso wrote: post #42
closeparen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's in doubt that it makes sense to own everything from the land to the silicon when you're the size of one of these "original internet companies." The question is, does it make sense for businesses with a handful of servers running their office environment, to a few thousand servers running production for a moderately popular web service, to pay consultants to drive out and tend the servers in their o…

Running on rented hardware is the equivalent of a traditional product company renting all of their factories. Almost any company of reasonable size will want vertical integration of their supply chain and web companies are no different. Using Netflix as an example again, if they're pitted against a company that runs their own hardware but is otherwise equal, they will lose. A portion of their profit is siphoned off a…

> Running on rented hardware is the equivalent of a traditional product company renting all of their factories.

Or a traditional business renting a storefront? Something that happens all the time. Even huge companies like Apple use OEMs. Samsung manufactured Apple chips for years despite putting up a direct competitor to apple in the Galaxy S.

Systems like this allow people who do not have capital to scale up. Just like developers build malls and lease space to retailers or OEMs build factories and lease them to companies to make equipment.

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