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If you're going to spend top dollar on Arista/Cisco/EMC/NetApp, you might as well stay in the cloud. None of the clouds use any of that super-expensive gear, s
by kijiki 10y ago
If you're going to spend top dollar on Arista/Cisco/EMC/NetApp, you might as well stay in the cloud.
None of the clouds use any of that super-expensive gear, so if you're going for cost savings, you'll need to use the same sort of commodity gear they use.
Gitlab is obviously Linux-savvy and comfortable writing automation, so things like Cumulus Linux and minimal-handholding hardware vendors shouldn't cause them any indigestion.
<disclaimer: co-founder of Cumulus Networks, so slightly biased>
- late2part 10y agoI disagree. With over 300 servers in AWS, you can almost certainly build a redundant data center with hardware at less than 60% of the costing assuming 3 year depreciation. Arista and Cisco shouldn't cost top dollar; though anyone buying EMC or Netapp for any new build should have their union card revoked. FreeNAS ftw uber alles. Source: Did it twice.
- closeparen 10y agoIs FreeNAS something people actually run Serious Business, at-scale production datacenters on? I've run it in my home a few times out of curiosity, and that was never my impression.
- late2part 10y agoYes. I know of several billion dollar companies that run it in a web facing production operations capacity.
- Spooky23 10y agoAny good talks or other resources about this sort of use case that you might recommend? We're... displeased with the current solution that we're using at work for this use case. :)
- late2part 10y agoI've created a subreddit here [0] for discussion. Ask some questions and I'll give you the information I have that's relevant. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/WebScaleFreeNAS/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WebScaleFreeNAS/
- Spooky23 10y agoBut this is a couple of hundred boxes, not AWS. I've been to a Microsoft data center... the scale is infinitely larger and solutions are different well. My point isn't to knock them down. It takes cohones to be public about stuff like this. My instinct as a grumpy engineering director type is that there are holes here that need to be filled in. Putting a major product at risk to save $30k against an Arista switch isn't a decision to make lightly. That means pricing the labor, upside benefit and business risk. If they are going to 100x this environment, Cumulus will save millions. If it will 3x, it will save a few thousand bucks -- who cares.
- gsylvie 10y agocojones