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Edit: Thanks to replies explaining that in fact AKS doesn't charge for the master! I'm leaving the rest of this comment standing because it's an honest reply to

by gkop 9y ago

Edit: Thanks to replies explaining that in fact AKS doesn't charge for the master! I'm leaving the rest of this comment standing because it's an honest reply to the article posted - Microsoft isn't disingenuous, this article is just wrong. > Be that as it may, Microsoft is offering AKS for free. You will only pay for the virtual machines (VM) that you use for managing your Kubernetes cluster. Microsoft says, “Unlike other cloud providers who charge an hourly rate for the management infrastructure, with AKS you will pay nothing for the management of your Kubernetes cluster, ever. After all, the cloud should be about only paying for what you consume.” This is disingenuous. We're talking about k8s, so GKE is the comparison point. Yes GKE charges a flat hourly fee for cluster management, regardless of the number or size of the nodes[0]. But GKE doesn't charge for the master instances (which are hidden away behind the GKE product). So AKS will not charge for the cluster management, but will charge for the master instances. Neither pricing model is more "for free" than the other. Also, if we have to think about the master instance sizes on AKS because we're paying for them, then that's one thing we have to manage on AKS that we don't have to manage on GKE - GKE adds more value by more completely managing our cluster. [0] pedantic: there's actually no fee for clusters of less than 6 nodes.

clhodapp 9y ago
GKE does charge for the masters for clusters of 6 or more nodes. See https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine/pricing https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine/pricing. Microsoft's offering does not seem to charge you for the masters ever, so that does seem like a differentiator.
- gkop 9y ago
  You write "Microsoft's offering does not seem to charge you for the masters ever". The article says "You will only pay for the virtual machines (VM) that you use for managing your Kubernetes cluster". Do you have a source that disagrees with the article? Edit: to those replying correcting the article, if you were to create a top-level comment on this thread correcting the article, we could upvote your comments and better correct the misinformation. I have edited my own comment explaining what you have dug up. Thanks for your research!
  - Voloskaya 9y ago
    https://docs.microsoft.com/gl-es/azure/aks/intro-kubernetes https://docs.microsoft.com/gl-es/azure/aks/intro-kubernetes > "you pay only for the agent nodes within your clusters, not for the masters."
    - justinjlynn 9y ago
      Which is to be read "the price of the Master is incorporated into the amortised price per unit time of the agent nodes". Microsoft is not giving you something for nothing here.
      - plasma 9y ago
        To be fair to MS here, the agent price is the same as the stand-alone VM pricing, so there really does not appear to be a premium/hidden cost here.
        justinjlynn 9y ago
        Either that or everyone is paying some kind of premium to subsidise the service. I would be extremely surprised if it's not rolled into some cost of goods sold metric -- if it's one thing microsoft is not, it's being bad at passing on costs.
  - AaronFriel 9y ago
    Yes, I have played with AKS. You do not pay for the Kubernetes masters, just the nodes. In the prior version of the product (ACS) you would specify a cluster size as a number of masters and a number of workers/nodes. In AKS, you only manage the latter and Azure abstracts away the Kubernetes API. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/container-service/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/container-...
    - chimeracoder 9y ago
      > Yes, I have played with AKS. You do not pay for the Kubernetes masters, just the nodes. In the prior version of the product (ACS) you would specify a cluster size as a number of masters and a number of workers/nodes. In AKS, you only manage the latter and Azure abstracts away the Kubernetes API. On GKE, if i run a Kubernetes cluster of size 1, I'm still charged for a single VM. You're saying that if I do the equivalent on Azure, I won't get charged at all?
013a 9y ago
Statement's like Microsoft's are horrible; "the cloud should be about paying for what you consume" well, Kubernetes consumes at least one master node in order to orchestrate a cluster. But, Google/GKE does charge for management of the cluster. A constant fee of $109/mo for 6+ nodes. Its not technically the charge for the master node, but that cost to Google + other things is likely where that $109/mo comes from.
AaronFriel 9y ago
> Also, if we have to think about the master instance sizes on AKS because we're paying for them, then that's one thing we have to manage on AKS that we don't have to manage on GKE This is entirely premised on your speculation which turned out to be false. Curious that you're willing to call this blog post disingenuous when you're the one spreading falsehoods?
- gkop 9y ago
  "You will only pay for the virtual machines (VM) that you use for managing your Kubernetes cluster."
thockingoog 9y ago
Google and GKE team member here: The AKS announcement was either poorly worded or intentionally vague. I choose to grant the benefit of the doubt. For small clusters (less than 1-5 nodes) GKE does not currently charge anything "extra" except your own node VMs. That is LITERALLY a $0 master. Beyond 5 nodes we currently charge a flat rate that covers your zonal master(s) regardless of how many or how big they need to be.
- thockingoog 9y ago
  ...and as of today there is no fee for masters on GKE. https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2017/11/Cutting-Cluster-Management-Fees-on-Google-Kubernetes-Engine.html https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2017/11/Cutting-Cluster...

by gkop 9y ago

clhodapp 9y ago

GKE does charge for the masters for clusters of 6 or more nodes. See https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine/pricing https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine/pricing. Microsoft's offering does not seem to charge you for the masters ever, so that does seem like a differentiator.

gkop 9y ago
You write "Microsoft's offering does not seem to charge you for the masters ever". The article says "You will only pay for the virtual machines (VM) that you use for managing your Kubernetes cluster". Do you have a source that disagrees with the article? Edit: to those replying correcting the article, if you were to create a top-level comment on this thread correcting the article, we could upvote your comments and better correct the misinformation. I have edited my own comment explaining what you have dug up. Thanks for your research!
- Voloskaya 9y ago
  https://docs.microsoft.com/gl-es/azure/aks/intro-kubernetes https://docs.microsoft.com/gl-es/azure/aks/intro-kubernetes > "you pay only for the agent nodes within your clusters, not for the masters."
  - justinjlynn 9y ago
    Which is to be read "the price of the Master is incorporated into the amortised price per unit time of the agent nodes". Microsoft is not giving you something for nothing here.
    - plasma 9y ago
      To be fair to MS here, the agent price is the same as the stand-alone VM pricing, so there really does not appear to be a premium/hidden cost here.
      - justinjlynn 9y ago
        Either that or everyone is paying some kind of premium to subsidise the service. I would be extremely surprised if it's not rolled into some cost of goods sold metric -- if it's one thing microsoft is not, it's being bad at passing on costs.
- AaronFriel 9y ago
  Yes, I have played with AKS. You do not pay for the Kubernetes masters, just the nodes. In the prior version of the product (ACS) you would specify a cluster size as a number of masters and a number of workers/nodes. In AKS, you only manage the latter and Azure abstracts away the Kubernetes API. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/container-service/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/container-...
  - chimeracoder 9y ago
    > Yes, I have played with AKS. You do not pay for the Kubernetes masters, just the nodes. In the prior version of the product (ACS) you would specify a cluster size as a number of masters and a number of workers/nodes. In AKS, you only manage the latter and Azure abstracts away the Kubernetes API. On GKE, if i run a Kubernetes cluster of size 1, I'm still charged for a single VM. You're saying that if I do the equivalent on Azure, I won't get charged at all?

013a 9y ago

Statement's like Microsoft's are horrible; "the cloud should be about paying for what you consume" well, Kubernetes consumes at least one master node in order to orchestrate a cluster. But, Google/GKE does charge for management of the cluster. A constant fee of $109/mo for 6+ nodes. Its not technically the charge for the master node, but that cost to Google + other things is likely where that $109/mo comes from.

AaronFriel 9y ago

> Also, if we have to think about the master instance sizes on AKS because we're paying for them, then that's one thing we have to manage on AKS that we don't have to manage on GKE This is entirely premised on your speculation which turned out to be false. Curious that you're willing to call this blog post disingenuous when you're the one spreading falsehoods?

gkop 9y ago
"You will only pay for the virtual machines (VM) that you use for managing your Kubernetes cluster."

thockingoog 9y ago

Google and GKE team member here: The AKS announcement was either poorly worded or intentionally vague. I choose to grant the benefit of the doubt. For small clusters (less than 1-5 nodes) GKE does not currently charge anything "extra" except your own node VMs. That is LITERALLY a $0 master. Beyond 5 nodes we currently charge a flat rate that covers your zonal master(s) regardless of how many or how big they need to be.

thockingoog 9y ago
...and as of today there is no fee for masters on GKE. https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2017/11/Cutting-Cluster-Management-Fees-on-Google-Kubernetes-Engine.html https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2017/11/Cutting-Cluster...