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I can't say I agree with the first two points. For point #1: cloud services are fairly competitively prices with each other and using the tools they provide wi

by throwaway2016a 10y ago

I can't say I agree with the first two points. For point #1: cloud services are fairly competitively prices with each other and using the tools they provide will lock you into a vendor but also drastically reduce cost. For example, we used to roll our own MySQL and Postgres now we use AWS RDS and it has saves us so much money I can't believe we didn't do it in the first place. Does that mean it will be more work to switch off of AWS? Yes, but it was worth it for us. For point #2: with that attitude we would have never adopted Docker. And adopting it early put us well ahead of the game. Now almost everyone seems to use Docker or something like it but if we waited for it to mature it would have taken longer to get the rewards. I completely agree with #3, though. Although back to #1, taking advantage of cloud provider specific monitoring tools can save a lot of time and money. Edit: someone is way too downvote happy. Or maybe I'm using downvotes wrong. I use it for "you're an ass" not "I disagree with you"... I'd love to hear the opinion of the person who downvoted me and why they feel that way.

latch 10y ago
I don't agree with you, but I'm tired of this fight. I'm replying to your point about downvoting in case it helps: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 Speaking of tired fights, and only slightly related, I've always thought removing the vote count display was a mistake
kuschku 10y ago
> drastically reduce cost. How did you reduce the cost by switching to AWS? That’s basically impossible. Usually renting dedicated boxes and running your own instances on them is the cheapest solution. I guess that might also be the reason for downvotes: You making such an extraordinary claim that it seems like trolling.
- throwaway2016a 10y ago
  Ahh, I see now where the confusion was. I reread part #1 of the article and I was arguing something slightly different. My argument is that using something like AWS RDS has lower startup cost than having a DBA manage a DB server manually not that it is cheaper than running on bare-metal. I guess what I am saying is running your DB manually on the cloud protects you from vendor lock in (Cloud Jail as he calls it) but at the expense of greater upfront costs. It is the worst of both words. I think startup shouldn't worry about managing their database, it's a distraction in the early/mid stages. If a cloud provider has a managed version the break even point where building it out yourself is cheaper is actually surprisingly far out and if you haven't validated your idea yet, I just don't think it the ROI justifies it. Replace database with other infrastructure pieces. With that said, after re-reading I do agree with the author on the point that you should consider your options and have a plan.

latch 10y ago

I don't agree with you, but I'm tired of this fight. I'm replying to your point about downvoting in case it helps: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 Speaking of tired fights, and only slightly related, I've always thought removing the vote count display was a mistake

kuschku 10y ago

> drastically reduce cost. How did you reduce the cost by switching to AWS? That’s basically impossible. Usually renting dedicated boxes and running your own instances on them is the cheapest solution. I guess that might also be the reason for downvotes: You making such an extraordinary claim that it seems like trolling.

throwaway2016a 10y ago
Ahh, I see now where the confusion was. I reread part #1 of the article and I was arguing something slightly different. My argument is that using something like AWS RDS has lower startup cost than having a DBA manage a DB server manually not that it is cheaper than running on bare-metal. I guess what I am saying is running your DB manually on the cloud protects you from vendor lock in (Cloud Jail as he calls it) but at the expense of greater upfront costs. It is the worst of both words. I think startup shouldn't worry about managing their database, it's a distraction in the early/mid stages. If a cloud provider has a managed version the break even point where building it out yourself is cheaper is actually surprisingly far out and if you haven't validated your idea yet, I just don't think it the ROI justifies it. Replace database with other infrastructure pieces. With that said, after re-reading I do agree with the author on the point that you should consider your options and have a plan.