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Yeah I suppose my argument is a bit moot given Amazon probably makes plenty of money in the private sector without having to worry about academia. But if they c
by FTA 9y ago
Yeah I suppose my argument is a bit moot given Amazon probably makes plenty of money in the private sector without having to worry about academia. But if they could get the cost down to be on the level of buying and running your own hardware, they could see an emergent market.
In fact, the federal government in its current business-oriented mindset may even lean towards a contractor handled machine to replace ones like Yellowstone at NCAR or those at NOAA NCEP if the price was right.
- jrochkind1 9y agoIt would make a lot of sense if grants covered such costs, even at current AWS prices. Currently, I suspect a lot of IT-heavy grant-funded projects are basically relying on university infrastructure being provided without full (or in some cases any) project-based cost recoup, which universities are increasingly loathe to do. The indirect/overhead margin probably doesn't always really cover it. (And it's not like a university is going to let you use 'overhead' dollars for AWS, _even if_ it would actually be a cost savings compared to the local IT you are using instead!) It's not really rational economic decisions being made all around. Proper professional IT is expensive. People still think automating is supposed to save them money, but turns out, nope. Many industries are still relying on unprofessionally provided IT instead of paying for professional IT.