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I'm calling this: after attending Google Cloud Next last week, and seeing the huge improvements to GCP in the last 18 months, I am supremely confident that AWS

I'm calling this: after attending Google Cloud Next last week, and seeing the huge improvements to GCP in the last 18 months, I am supremely confident that AWS should be worried about Google as a legitimate competitor. $GOOG is betting big on GCP, and they are executing at a very high level releasing iterative products and new features. I'm recommending GCP for all my clients (shameless plug https://elasticbyte.net https://elasticbyte.net) if they don't have any infrastructure setup or provisioned already. While AWS offers a wider array of integrated services (they do have a large lead time), GCP has learned from all the mistakes of other providers. They started off with a superior project based structure, then per-minute billing, then sustained-use discounts, then Container Engine (GKE), then the Firebase acquisition (genius), now Functions and SQL Postgres support.

bitmapbrother 10y ago
Legitimate competitor? With all of the data centers they have sprouting up this year and their superior networking technology and infrastructure I'll go on the record and say they'll be #1 in 5 years.
- nodesocket 10y ago
  Completely agree they absolutely nailed networking and VPCs. GCP network attached disks are so much faster and easier to groc than EBS. The bigger the GCP disk, the faster it performs. If you want to maximize IOPS make a disk 750GB or larger. Compared that with EBS that has overhead with concepts like enhanced networking, EBS optimized, and don't even get me started on provisioned IOPS.
  - vacri 10y ago
    Provisioned IOPS is still there, but in AWS the standard disk is 'the bigger the disk, the faster it is' - 3IOPS/GB (theoretically), with max IOPS at 1000GB. 'Enhanced Networking' is on most server types now as well. AWS pricing is definitely not made to be simple to understand, though...
Guest98123 10y ago
Whether you're on Amazon or Google, one thing is certain, we're going to have some amazing services and options available due to the competition between the two, and both of them fighting for market share. I'm on AWS at the moment, and I'm in no hurry to jump ship, because I know Amazon is going to be forced to stay competitive with comparable services and pricing. In 3 or 5 years, if there's a clear winner, I'll make the switch, but for now, it's going to be fun just watching everything unfold.
- rascoe 10y ago
  I don't think switching will be the answer, but rather federation. We are currently deploying new services on Kubernetes and we can run isolated Kubernetes clusters on either GCP (not just GKE), or on AWS. While we aren't to the point of using cluster federation for production yet, this is the next logical step. I see a, not to distant, future where we have cluster federation across on premise, GCP, and AWS clusters. If, like us, your all in on the container Kool-Aid, then I believe the future looks a lot like policy based Kubernetes scheduling across federated clusters. Policy factors like geolocation, spot pricing, resource requirements, SLOs, etc... are all configureable to the app developer and transparently effected by pluggable Kubernetes schedulers.
  - ma2rten 10y ago
    Is it practical to replicate your data between clouds?
jedberg 10y ago
Most folks on HN are part of the startup crowd, and what that crowd misses is that while GCP is technically superior in every way, they have no idea how to sell to an enterprise. Google's sales method is, "There's the docs, good luck". Enterprises don't like that. They like to be hand held, they like lots of humans taking them out for lunches and dinners. So far Google has not shown any inclination that they know how to enterprise, and in fact it's fairly counter-cultural for them. If they learn to sell to the enterprise, I agree with you. But right now, almost all the money in cloud is with the enterprise, and right now Google has no idea how to address that market.
- nodesocket 10y ago
  > So far Google has not shown any inclination that they know how to enterprise, and in fact it's fairly counter-cultural for them. While traditionally true with Google Products, I disagree with Cloud. Did you attend Google Cloud Next? Trust me, they are focusing on enterprises. Their support has improved significantly and they are focusing on business cases (costs, management, audit, security). I am certain the Google Cloud Next conference in a few years will look just as enterprise as AWS re:Invent.
  - jedberg 10y ago
    I did attend briefly, and I got a run down from some enterprise folks. They said Google appears to be thinking about making an effort towards enterprise, but they aren't there yet. Also, they don't have a sales force like Amazon. A bunch of non-engineer humans who do nothing but convince other people to buy their product. They are still trying to solve human problems with engineering, and sales is a tough nut to crack for a computer, even a really strong AI. :)
    - ma2rten 10y ago
      At my last job I actually talked to a sales person from Google who tried really hard to get us to move to GCP.
      - 10y ago
jacquesm 10y ago
Without functioning customer support all that is moot.
- nodesocket 10y ago
  But they have support and it is actually awesome. What support plan are you on? Silver, Gold?
- bitmapbrother 10y ago
  Have you even used the service?
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    Currently a customer. But thank you for asking.
    - criddell 10y ago
      So you know about this: https://cloud.google.com/support/ https://cloud.google.com/support/ What did you mean by no functioning customer support?
    - tscanausa 10y ago
      Terrance from GCP Support. If you have problems with our support team send me an email (tsg@google.com) and I will look into it.

bitmapbrother 10y ago

Legitimate competitor? With all of the data centers they have sprouting up this year and their superior networking technology and infrastructure I'll go on the record and say they'll be #1 in 5 years.

nodesocket 10y ago
Completely agree they absolutely nailed networking and VPCs. GCP network attached disks are so much faster and easier to groc than EBS. The bigger the GCP disk, the faster it performs. If you want to maximize IOPS make a disk 750GB or larger. Compared that with EBS that has overhead with concepts like enhanced networking, EBS optimized, and don't even get me started on provisioned IOPS.
- vacri 10y ago
  Provisioned IOPS is still there, but in AWS the standard disk is 'the bigger the disk, the faster it is' - 3IOPS/GB (theoretically), with max IOPS at 1000GB. 'Enhanced Networking' is on most server types now as well. AWS pricing is definitely not made to be simple to understand, though...

Guest98123 10y ago

Whether you're on Amazon or Google, one thing is certain, we're going to have some amazing services and options available due to the competition between the two, and both of them fighting for market share. I'm on AWS at the moment, and I'm in no hurry to jump ship, because I know Amazon is going to be forced to stay competitive with comparable services and pricing. In 3 or 5 years, if there's a clear winner, I'll make the switch, but for now, it's going to be fun just watching everything unfold.

rascoe 10y ago
I don't think switching will be the answer, but rather federation. We are currently deploying new services on Kubernetes and we can run isolated Kubernetes clusters on either GCP (not just GKE), or on AWS. While we aren't to the point of using cluster federation for production yet, this is the next logical step. I see a, not to distant, future where we have cluster federation across on premise, GCP, and AWS clusters. If, like us, your all in on the container Kool-Aid, then I believe the future looks a lot like policy based Kubernetes scheduling across federated clusters. Policy factors like geolocation, spot pricing, resource requirements, SLOs, etc... are all configureable to the app developer and transparently effected by pluggable Kubernetes schedulers.
- ma2rten 10y ago
  Is it practical to replicate your data between clouds?

jedberg 10y ago

Most folks on HN are part of the startup crowd, and what that crowd misses is that while GCP is technically superior in every way, they have no idea how to sell to an enterprise. Google's sales method is, "There's the docs, good luck". Enterprises don't like that. They like to be hand held, they like lots of humans taking them out for lunches and dinners. So far Google has not shown any inclination that they know how to enterprise, and in fact it's fairly counter-cultural for them. If they learn to sell to the enterprise, I agree with you. But right now, almost all the money in cloud is with the enterprise, and right now Google has no idea how to address that market.

nodesocket 10y ago
> So far Google has not shown any inclination that they know how to enterprise, and in fact it's fairly counter-cultural for them. While traditionally true with Google Products, I disagree with Cloud. Did you attend Google Cloud Next? Trust me, they are focusing on enterprises. Their support has improved significantly and they are focusing on business cases (costs, management, audit, security). I am certain the Google Cloud Next conference in a few years will look just as enterprise as AWS re:Invent.
- jedberg 10y ago
  I did attend briefly, and I got a run down from some enterprise folks. They said Google appears to be thinking about making an effort towards enterprise, but they aren't there yet. Also, they don't have a sales force like Amazon. A bunch of non-engineer humans who do nothing but convince other people to buy their product. They are still trying to solve human problems with engineering, and sales is a tough nut to crack for a computer, even a really strong AI. :)
  - ma2rten 10y ago
    At my last job I actually talked to a sales person from Google who tried really hard to get us to move to GCP.
    - 10y ago

jacquesm 10y ago

Without functioning customer support all that is moot.

nodesocket 10y ago
But they have support and it is actually awesome. What support plan are you on? Silver, Gold?
bitmapbrother 10y ago
Have you even used the service?
- jacquesm 10y ago
  Currently a customer. But thank you for asking.
  - criddell 10y ago
    So you know about this: https://cloud.google.com/support/ https://cloud.google.com/support/ What did you mean by no functioning customer support?
  - tscanausa 10y ago
    Terrance from GCP Support. If you have problems with our support team send me an email (tsg@google.com) and I will look into it.