5 ms·

That's completely nuts - for 30PB you'll be paying like $1.5M per month for storage and compute, you could buy all the hardware for maybe $3-5M and rent space f

That's completely nuts - for 30PB you'll be paying like $1.5M per month for storage and compute, you could buy all the hardware for maybe $3-5M and rent space for it for like $50k per month.. over 3 years the same cluster would cost you over $50M on AWS versus $10M to do it yourself (let's be generous and say plus 10 engineers at $2.5m/year to run it) so $17.5M to DIY.. there are some situations where it makes sense, like if your baseline is low and your fluctuation is high, but IMO if you have a baseline of 30PB, you'd be able to pay for a lot more engineers if it was in house.

jghn 10y ago
We haven't fully transferred yet, but yes our monthly bills are quite large. From everything i've heard it's been a net savings. There are other advantages such as the cheaper 'deep storage' tiers, spinning up just the compute we need it on demand instead of having to worry about keeping it all packed, etc. It's going to be expensive and a pain in the ass either way. Our largest problem has been the realization that "the cloud" is not in fact infinite despite what the the commercials will have you believe. We quite frequently are told to cool our jets.
- tw04 10y ago
  You can get those same "deep storage" tiers on prem for a fraction of the cost of AWS. There's no scenario, short you of you running the systems at less than 40% capacity, that AWS is cheaper. You have to be criminally inefficient or very very very small (like less than one server small) for AWS to EVER be a cost play. I should add, bursty workloads like batch processing can be a cost play simply because a once-a-month even that is time sensitive can benefit greatly from instant* CPU that you don't have to pay for the rest of the month. Those workloads tend to be very niche and one-off for most businesses though.
  - ufmace 10y ago
    I don't know a lot about the huge scale side, but I tried running a teeny little server of my own on AWS, and it's way overpriced and over-complicated. You can get a single server for like 20% of the price on any number of hosting services. Digital Ocean works pretty well for me right now.
    - devonkim 10y ago
      AWS is somewhat lucky in that its best market was primarily organizations where an offering like it was actually very simple and transparent is what is desired and that price / performance is not what it competes well upon. This is rather different from their main business that's very focused upon lowering costs and merely by being online is in its own way performance. Internal IT in enterprise is so unbelievably terrible in the Fortune 500 that even the worst mass shared hosting provider probably offers more compelling value. Amazon didn't have much of a bar to cross in technicals as much as in value proposition to encourage a transition worth future benefits.
danudey 10y ago
At that scale you can negotiate significant discounts though.
- jghn 10y ago
  Also a very good point. The difference in price between what i'd pay for my personal work and my professional work isn't nearly as large as one would assume based on the listed prices. That does vary by cloud vendor though.
- jerkstate 10y ago
  Do you know this to be true, or are you assuming?
  - devonkim 10y ago
    AWS has offered fairly significant discounts to organizations I'm familiar with that are well over $1M+ / month in usage, but this discount pales in comparison to how much they have saved in labor and availability compared to internal managed IT even completely ignoring the business agility kinds of arguments.
- ju-st 10y ago
  When buying IT equipment worth millions you will get very significant discounts,too.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    And if in the US, write $500k a year off as an immediate expense (when purchasing your gear) versus depreciation. AWS spend is ongoing opex that's gone forever.

jghn 10y ago

We haven't fully transferred yet, but yes our monthly bills are quite large. From everything i've heard it's been a net savings. There are other advantages such as the cheaper 'deep storage' tiers, spinning up just the compute we need it on demand instead of having to worry about keeping it all packed, etc. It's going to be expensive and a pain in the ass either way. Our largest problem has been the realization that "the cloud" is not in fact infinite despite what the the commercials will have you believe. We quite frequently are told to cool our jets.

tw04 10y ago
You can get those same "deep storage" tiers on prem for a fraction of the cost of AWS. There's no scenario, short you of you running the systems at less than 40% capacity, that AWS is cheaper. You have to be criminally inefficient or very very very small (like less than one server small) for AWS to EVER be a cost play. I should add, bursty workloads like batch processing can be a cost play simply because a once-a-month even that is time sensitive can benefit greatly from instant* CPU that you don't have to pay for the rest of the month. Those workloads tend to be very niche and one-off for most businesses though.
- ufmace 10y ago
  I don't know a lot about the huge scale side, but I tried running a teeny little server of my own on AWS, and it's way overpriced and over-complicated. You can get a single server for like 20% of the price on any number of hosting services. Digital Ocean works pretty well for me right now.
  - devonkim 10y ago
    AWS is somewhat lucky in that its best market was primarily organizations where an offering like it was actually very simple and transparent is what is desired and that price / performance is not what it competes well upon. This is rather different from their main business that's very focused upon lowering costs and merely by being online is in its own way performance. Internal IT in enterprise is so unbelievably terrible in the Fortune 500 that even the worst mass shared hosting provider probably offers more compelling value. Amazon didn't have much of a bar to cross in technicals as much as in value proposition to encourage a transition worth future benefits.

danudey 10y ago

At that scale you can negotiate significant discounts though.

jghn 10y ago
Also a very good point. The difference in price between what i'd pay for my personal work and my professional work isn't nearly as large as one would assume based on the listed prices. That does vary by cloud vendor though.
jerkstate 10y ago
Do you know this to be true, or are you assuming?
- devonkim 10y ago
  AWS has offered fairly significant discounts to organizations I'm familiar with that are well over $1M+ / month in usage, but this discount pales in comparison to how much they have saved in labor and availability compared to internal managed IT even completely ignoring the business agility kinds of arguments.
ju-st 10y ago
When buying IT equipment worth millions you will get very significant discounts,too.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  And if in the US, write $500k a year off as an immediate expense (when purchasing your gear) versus depreciation. AWS spend is ongoing opex that's gone forever.