4 ms·

For me, this immediately discounts it: > $0.90 per node per hr That's $648/mo in pure overhead. I'm not saying there should be no overhead but it shouldn't b

by _rk8k 9y ago

For me, this immediately discounts it: > $0.90 per node per hr That's $648/mo in pure overhead. I'm not saying there should be no overhead but it shouldn't be that high. They also optimistically encourage you to try it with a "free" trial. The "free" trial, assuming you haven't used GCP before, gives you $300 credit, which is enough for less than 2 weeks of a single Spanner node. Plus according to https://cloud.google.com/spanner/docs/instance-configuration https://cloud.google.com/spanner/docs/instance-configuration, they recommend a minimum of 3 nodes, or $1800/mo. I know this is targeted at businesses but it'd be nice if we could get smaller "nodes" or something to lower the barrier to entry. You shouldn't have to go straight from nothing to 10k QPS.

crypto5 9y ago
And what are the specs for this node? CPU, RAM?
- Veratyr 9y ago
  They don't appear to document this, save that they handle 10k QPS read or 2k QPS write and can deal with 2TiB of data. They also recommend that you have 3 of them: https://cloud.google.com/spanner/docs/instance-configuration https://cloud.google.com/spanner/docs/instance-configuration
- oaktowner 9y ago
  According to this article[0] (that someone referenced below): A Cloud Spanner “node” isn't a physical machine, per se. It is an allocation of compute capacity and disk access throughput on a set of machines with access to the storage API. (disclosure: I work at Google Cloud but not on Spanner) [0] https://quizlet.com/blog/quizlet-cloud-spanner https://quizlet.com/blog/quizlet-cloud-spanner
  - puzzle 9y ago
    Cloud Bigtable is similar.
boulos 9y ago
In case people don't do the math, you (seem to be) are suggesting that Spanner should be $9/month. I certainly argued for a "shared Spanner" mode, that wouldn't give you a dedicated setup. The benefit is that the minimum "install" would be super low, allowing you to start on a slice and move upwards (like many teams at Google!). The reality is that $8k/year isn't that much for a company. You can all share it, get quite a bit out even the smallest deployment and so on. However, compared to the work to slim down the minimum deployment for Spanner, this was honestly a reasonable outcome (that is, I certainly wouldn't have wanted to see the team delay a year to build a shared multitenancy version). Additionally, Spanner does things for you that MySQL et al. don't. Having an automagic Regional (and eventually Global if you'd like) database without dealing with sharding is worth $8k/year even to me. So even if it could fit on $10/month of hardware, I don't begrudge them for charging a service fee, rather than saying "This is how much cores, RAM, disk and flash this eats". Disclosure: I work on Google Cloud and obviously have a vested interest in you paying us :).
- degenerate 9y ago
  I think he edited his post so your $9/mo math no longer references anything he said. But I think the issue is: making the commitment to use Spanner will take more than 2 weeks ($300 in credit) to determine if it's worth using. Why not setup a "shared Spanner" with millions of pre-populated rows, and let free accounts have unlimited read-only access to it? That would let people fiddle with the technology before sweating bullets during the 2 week trial. (5 day trial if you run the recommended 3 node minimum)
  - jbergens 9y ago
    They could also increase the credit for testing. For example if you are a verified company and want to try it they could give you 2-3 months free or really cheap.
- narrowingorbits 9y ago
  This makes sense. But, for many (at least bootstrapping) startups, $1800/mo for the database is not in the realm of the possible. Is not having to deal with (future) sharding headaches "worth" that much? Sure. But that doesn't mean it's possible. So by pricing us out of the entry level, you will forgo having startups build their platforms on it and get hooked (while it's still at 1-node mysql scale). When the sharding headache hits and they're scrambling to scale, will they switch to Spanner? Maybe. Probably. They'll want to, anyway. But there is a big market that will be missed.

by _rk8k 9y ago

crypto5 9y ago

And what are the specs for this node? CPU, RAM?

Veratyr 9y ago
They don't appear to document this, save that they handle 10k QPS read or 2k QPS write and can deal with 2TiB of data. They also recommend that you have 3 of them: https://cloud.google.com/spanner/docs/instance-configuration https://cloud.google.com/spanner/docs/instance-configuration
oaktowner 9y ago
According to this article[0] (that someone referenced below): A Cloud Spanner “node” isn't a physical machine, per se. It is an allocation of compute capacity and disk access throughput on a set of machines with access to the storage API. (disclosure: I work at Google Cloud but not on Spanner) [0] https://quizlet.com/blog/quizlet-cloud-spanner https://quizlet.com/blog/quizlet-cloud-spanner
- puzzle 9y ago
  Cloud Bigtable is similar.

boulos 9y ago

In case people don't do the math, you (seem to be) are suggesting that Spanner should be $9/month. I certainly argued for a "shared Spanner" mode, that wouldn't give you a dedicated setup. The benefit is that the minimum "install" would be super low, allowing you to start on a slice and move upwards (like many teams at Google!). The reality is that $8k/year isn't that much for a company. You can all share it, get quite a bit out even the smallest deployment and so on. However, compared to the work to slim down the minimum deployment for Spanner, this was honestly a reasonable outcome (that is, I certainly wouldn't have wanted to see the team delay a year to build a shared multitenancy version). Additionally, Spanner does things for you that MySQL et al. don't. Having an automagic Regional (and eventually Global if you'd like) database without dealing with sharding is worth $8k/year even to me. So even if it could fit on $10/month of hardware, I don't begrudge them for charging a service fee, rather than saying "This is how much cores, RAM, disk and flash this eats". Disclosure: I work on Google Cloud and obviously have a vested interest in you paying us :).

degenerate 9y ago
I think he edited his post so your $9/mo math no longer references anything he said. But I think the issue is: making the commitment to use Spanner will take more than 2 weeks ($300 in credit) to determine if it's worth using. Why not setup a "shared Spanner" with millions of pre-populated rows, and let free accounts have unlimited read-only access to it? That would let people fiddle with the technology before sweating bullets during the 2 week trial. (5 day trial if you run the recommended 3 node minimum)
- jbergens 9y ago
  They could also increase the credit for testing. For example if you are a verified company and want to try it they could give you 2-3 months free or really cheap.
narrowingorbits 9y ago
This makes sense. But, for many (at least bootstrapping) startups, $1800/mo for the database is not in the realm of the possible. Is not having to deal with (future) sharding headaches "worth" that much? Sure. But that doesn't mean it's possible. So by pricing us out of the entry level, you will forgo having startups build their platforms on it and get hooked (while it's still at 1-node mysql scale). When the sharding headache hits and they're scrambling to scale, will they switch to Spanner? Maybe. Probably. They'll want to, anyway. But there is a big market that will be missed.