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I got pwned by my cloud costs

troyhunt.com

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Re: I got pwned by my cloud costs

#91

Post by creshal »

fuzzy2 wrote: post #84
lpcvoid wrote: post #56

Can somebody explain to me why I wouldn't just rent a 40 EUR dedicated server from Hetzner with unlimited traffic and gigabit uplink? His 600GB/day is way less than what you get over a gigabit link within a day. Sure, sudden bursts would perhaps "throttle" at a gigabit, but according to his article that was only the cloudflare proxy anyhow, so no pain in having that take a few seconds longer. As far as I am concerned…

That dedicated server you have to manage (ensure security, install the software you need, keep it updated and secure etc). It’s not for everyone. Also, as you can see in a screenshot on TFA: Some services are simply dirt cheap. The storage account and its various “sub-services” is such a thing. It’s hard to compete with dedicated hardware here. Depending on your dedicated hosting provider, the traffic cost trap exist…

> That dedicated server you have to manage (ensure security, install the software you need, keep it updated and secure etc). It’s not for everyone.

Hetzner also offers managed servers where all this is taken care of, for relatively fair prices.

Re: I got pwned by my cloud costs

#92

Post by coryrc »

tpetry wrote: post #33
scrollaway wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re trying to be snarky to GP, why exactly? Yes there are bad faith actors that might try to get some free cash out of cloud refunds. And other customers can also be good faith actors and included in the assertion. The post applies to everyone and I’d second it. Ask nicely for a refund in these situations, the worst that can happen is they say no. Where did they say that “only Troy Hunt shall receive a refund, for…

The response was snarky but it's meaning is true. Troy Hunt will get the refund without any problems because he is a public figure. But if a John Doe will make the same mistake he can only hope someone at AWS/Azure/GCP will lift his fees too - which is not guaranteed!

I think there's a dozen people in this thread who have gotten refunds and not a person saying they were refused?

Re: I got pwned by my cloud costs

#93

Post by jacquesm »

scrollaway wrote: post #20
jacquesm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As opposed to all those other customers who are not good faith actors?

You’re trying to be snarky to GP, why exactly? Yes there are bad faith actors that might try to get some free cash out of cloud refunds. And other customers can also be good faith actors and included in the assertion. The post applies to everyone and I’d second it. Ask nicely for a refund in these situations, the worst that can happen is they say no. Where did they say that “only Troy Hunt shall receive a refund, for…

No snark intended. It's just that I would assume that all customers of such services are in principle good faith actors, not just Troy.

The one thing that is special about Troy is that he is providing a service for the public good but that has nothing to do with being 'good faith' or not.

Re: I got pwned by my cloud costs

#94

Post by hnbad »

lpcvoid wrote: post #56

Can somebody explain to me why I wouldn't just rent a 40 EUR dedicated server from Hetzner with unlimited traffic and gigabit uplink? His 600GB/day is way less than what you get over a gigabit link within a day. Sure, sudden bursts would perhaps "throttle" at a gigabit, but according to his article that was only the cloudflare proxy anyhow, so no pain in having that take a few seconds longer. As far as I am concerned…

I think it is an irresponsible fad that people use cloud services for hobby projects (and despite its wide popularity I'm calling HIBP a hobby project since he's running it on the side for free) unless they have solid cloud ops experience from their day job.

Cloud providers love it when people do this and are famously easy to talk to when you get an unexpected invoice high enough to require remortgaging your house to even begin addressing it, but I think unless you're working on a side hustle that inherently will need to run in the cloud regardless of scale or are experimenting with cloud technologies in an explicitly time boxed toy project, using cloud services is the financial equivalent of handing a hobbyist craftsperson one of these chainsaw angle grinder attachments that even professionals find hard to keep from bouncing into your body.

If you do want to use cloud services for anything you pay out of your own pocket, the first consideration should be cost management and monitoring. Your employer might have big enough pockets to shrug off a runaway compute instance you forgot about for a month, but that can quickly translate into money that can be anything from inconvenient to life altering if it comes out of your personal budget.

Or just stick with the free tier and make sure everything simply shuts down if you run out. Sure, a "bandwidth exceeded" error page might not get you as many upvotes on HN, Reddit or social media, but it also won't impair your finances.

Re: I got pwned by my cloud costs

#95

Post by dmurray »

zarzavat wrote: post #79
lpcvoid wrote: post #56

Can somebody explain to me why I wouldn't just rent a 40 EUR dedicated server from Hetzner with unlimited traffic and gigabit uplink? His 600GB/day is way less than what you get over a gigabit link within a day. Sure, sudden bursts would perhaps "throttle" at a gigabit, but according to his article that was only the cloudflare proxy anyhow, so no pain in having that take a few seconds longer. As far as I am concerned…

> I just don't understand why people use cloud services. 1, when they need to adjust rapidly between different resource usage profiles, e.g. because they are growing rapidly and can't predict what the usage will be X days in advance 2. They have huge resource requirements and don't care to invest in their own infrastructure, but can negotiate lower rates with a cloud provider 3. When their resource usage is modest bu…

4. When their resource usage used to be modest, so they got on cloud services for increased developer convenience, and now can't afford the switching costs even though their bills are expensive.

Re: I got pwned by my cloud costs

#96

Post by elorant »

vegai_ wrote: post #90
technion wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is a Microsoft MVP. A title that is given for being a "community evangelist" of Microsoft. You wouldn't get that throwing it on a Heztner machine. Edit: Consider this article, and Geoff's statement about Azure credits. https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/21/microsoft_revokes_mvp...

Quoted post unavailable.

MVP can mean a lot of things depending on the context. In this case it means Most Valuable Professional.

Re: I got pwned by my cloud costs

#97

Post by Hamuko »

fs111 wrote: post #69
technion wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is a Microsoft MVP. A title that is given for being a "community evangelist" of Microsoft. You wouldn't get that throwing it on a Heztner machine. Edit: Consider this article, and Geoff's statement about Azure credits. https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/21/microsoft_revokes_mvp...

Sounds like a pretty expensive privilege. How is using cloudflare okay in this then? Cloudflare is also not Azure

>Sounds like a pretty expensive privilege.

Well, it might also come with contacts in the billing department.

Re: I got pwned by my cloud costs

#98

Post by [deleted] »

creshal wrote: post #91
fuzzy2 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That dedicated server you have to manage (ensure security, install the software you need, keep it updated and secure etc). It’s not for everyone. Also, as you can see in a screenshot on TFA: Some services are simply dirt cheap. The storage account and its various “sub-services” is such a thing. It’s hard to compete with dedicated hardware here. Depending on your dedicated hosting provider, the traffic cost trap exist…

> That dedicated server you have to manage (ensure security, install the software you need, keep it updated and secure etc). It’s not for everyone. Hetzner also offers managed servers where all this is taken care of, for relatively fair prices.

[deleted]

Re: I got pwned by my cloud costs

#99

Post by tlamponi »

zarzavat wrote: post #79
lpcvoid wrote: post #56

Can somebody explain to me why I wouldn't just rent a 40 EUR dedicated server from Hetzner with unlimited traffic and gigabit uplink? His 600GB/day is way less than what you get over a gigabit link within a day. Sure, sudden bursts would perhaps "throttle" at a gigabit, but according to his article that was only the cloudflare proxy anyhow, so no pain in having that take a few seconds longer. As far as I am concerned…

> I just don't understand why people use cloud services. 1, when they need to adjust rapidly between different resource usage profiles, e.g. because they are growing rapidly and can't predict what the usage will be X days in advance 2. They have huge resource requirements and don't care to invest in their own infrastructure, but can negotiate lower rates with a cloud provider 3. When their resource usage is modest bu…

> 1, when they need to adjust rapidly between different resource usage profiles, e.g. because they are growing rapidly and can't predict what the usage will be X days in advance

One can add new servers in minutes, removing has a bit more latency to it, but I'd figure with the huge price difference between rented and cloud you'll come out on top with the former in most case. Also, just use a clustering or orchestration layer in between, they range from very simple to setup and use (e.g., Proxmox VE), to quite complex but also very capable (OpenShift, kubernetes, ...).

> 2. They have huge resource requirements and don't care to invest in their own infrastructure, but can negotiate lower rates with a cloud provider

Using hetzner or other providers is not investing in their own infra, that's using (= renting) the providers infra and ability (peering, fast uplinks, datacenter perks like utility redundancy and staff on site). The second sentence may be true but probably not for most use cases that aren't huge yet, like the post here.

> 3. When their resource usage is modest but profitability is high enough that cloud expenditure is a rounding error

IFF, yes, and often infra costs are relatively low compared to salary costs, so that's definitively some optimization problem one should go through when deciding such things. Chances are that for most projects the profitability can be good but not magic money printing and infra costs are a non-negligible part that eats on their revenue, and then it's definitively worthwhile to think about avoiding the high premium most of those cloud offerings ask for.

Re: I got pwned by my cloud costs

#100

Post by dewey »

rcarmo wrote: post #88
fs111 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a pretty expensive privilege. How is using cloudflare okay in this then? Cloudflare is also not Azure

There are plenty of people using both, it's a good combination.

The point is about Cloudflare not being from Microsoft / Azure which is the company he's evangelising for.
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