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No way. AWS is prohibitively expensive at scale as are decent managed servers. Several jobs back. Startup with 150k to spend on IT. * Buy 75k hardware. * Two

No way. AWS is prohibitively expensive at scale as are decent managed servers. Several jobs back. Startup with 150k to spend on IT. * Buy 75k hardware. * Two colos <= 30k yearly + full managed support. * One PT SA 45K. That AWS budget doesn't touch scaling like the ability to scale across two sites and physical hardware for multiple years.

drdaeman 9y ago
Well, one can probably set up a "that shit doesn't really do anything serious" MVP on something even awfully host-prohibitive like Heroku, while preparing for a real deployment. Just to show off "we have a product and working on improvements". Would probably work just fine if they don't do anything heavyweight but just some CRUD/form processing with a billing integration and a few extras, like many websites/webapps essentially are. ;) In this sense it's probably a reasonable to not bother about the initial infrastructure before you actually need it. Just don't tie yourself to the cloud, because it'll bite very painfully.
eldavido 9y ago
Where is the "PT SA 45K" coming from? Somewhere in the interior US or overseas? That would be difficult to do in California.
- fundabulousrIII 9y ago
  California is not indicative. Northern Virginia (example) a lot of guys would bite on that with certain key caveats
- devrandomguy 9y ago
  Then don't. Why shouldn't a sysadmin work from home?
tarr11 9y ago
This solution has the following problems: 1. Over provisioning 2. Under provisioning, burstability 3. Prefers capex to opex 4. Requires hiring SA / IT forever 5. Changes in architecture become prohibitive
- fundabulousrIII 9y ago
  Totally agree on 1-3. It then becomes experiential. If you have _no_ experience with your architecture and can't design then: cloud. #4 is FUD. You'll hire them or some devops guy(s) anyway. $5 Architecture changes that require stack wide redesign are maybe common in your world but they aren't in mine. If you need to do this you probably need to be entirely month by month anyway.
- moduspol 9y ago
  It's got some great benefits, though: 1. Makes use of the skillset I already have (sysadmin managing servers), rather than requiring me to learn something new 2. Doesn't allow developers to build and iterate quickly without my permission / allowance 3. Allows me to be paid a salary and benefits that I will never factor into the costs when comparing to cloud infrastructure 4. Allows me to manage my own backups, deal with vendor finger-pointing, respond to and handle any hardware failures, amortize and replace hardware on some schedule, etc. 5. Allows me to pat myself on the back for ensuring the company theoretically avoids platform lock-in, which unsurprisingly results in more lowest-common-denominator architecture (servers needing managing, which of course, I'll manage), even if it greatly increases time to our minimum viable product
ukd1 9y ago
"at scale" <- lol. most startups aren't.
- fundabulousrIII 9y ago
  Most startups don't think about basic sh*t till too late either. That includes standup price and where they put their code.

drdaeman 9y ago

Well, one can probably set up a "that shit doesn't really do anything serious" MVP on something even awfully host-prohibitive like Heroku, while preparing for a real deployment. Just to show off "we have a product and working on improvements". Would probably work just fine if they don't do anything heavyweight but just some CRUD/form processing with a billing integration and a few extras, like many websites/webapps essentially are. ;) In this sense it's probably a reasonable to not bother about the initial infrastructure before you actually need it. Just don't tie yourself to the cloud, because it'll bite very painfully.

eldavido 9y ago

Where is the "PT SA 45K" coming from? Somewhere in the interior US or overseas? That would be difficult to do in California.

fundabulousrIII 9y ago
California is not indicative. Northern Virginia (example) a lot of guys would bite on that with certain key caveats
devrandomguy 9y ago
Then don't. Why shouldn't a sysadmin work from home?

tarr11 9y ago

This solution has the following problems: 1. Over provisioning 2. Under provisioning, burstability 3. Prefers capex to opex 4. Requires hiring SA / IT forever 5. Changes in architecture become prohibitive

fundabulousrIII 9y ago
Totally agree on 1-3. It then becomes experiential. If you have _no_ experience with your architecture and can't design then: cloud. #4 is FUD. You'll hire them or some devops guy(s) anyway. $5 Architecture changes that require stack wide redesign are maybe common in your world but they aren't in mine. If you need to do this you probably need to be entirely month by month anyway.
moduspol 9y ago
It's got some great benefits, though: 1. Makes use of the skillset I already have (sysadmin managing servers), rather than requiring me to learn something new 2. Doesn't allow developers to build and iterate quickly without my permission / allowance 3. Allows me to be paid a salary and benefits that I will never factor into the costs when comparing to cloud infrastructure 4. Allows me to manage my own backups, deal with vendor finger-pointing, respond to and handle any hardware failures, amortize and replace hardware on some schedule, etc. 5. Allows me to pat myself on the back for ensuring the company theoretically avoids platform lock-in, which unsurprisingly results in more lowest-common-denominator architecture (servers needing managing, which of course, I'll manage), even if it greatly increases time to our minimum viable product

ukd1 9y ago

"at scale" <- lol. most startups aren't.

fundabulousrIII 9y ago
Most startups don't think about basic sh*t till too late either. That includes standup price and where they put their code.