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Even if you're running everything else serverless and have no compute time at all? I know a VOD training service runs serverless with videos on S3 and they're

Even if you're running everything else serverless and have no compute time at all? I know a VOD training service runs serverless with videos on S3 and they're very successful.

nvivo 8y ago
I don't have the numbers here, but I'm pretty sure the same idea applies for serverless. If you have a predictable load, you can always find a much cheaper alternative once you pass a certain threshold. The cloud is never about cost, it's about flexibility.
- repsilat 8y ago
  Predictable or flat/consistent? If my load is negligible in US weekends and outside of business hours, that's a factor of 2 or 3 you can theoretically save over baseline=peak with some "cloud on demand" service. It's not an order of magnitude, but it's something. Probably not worth the effort, for most, though, and I have no idea if "dedicated box" services can approximate something similar.
  - nvivo 8y ago
    If you have a small number of requests over a large period, serverless is cheaper (that includes an api that is idle most of the time and peaks at a very high rate occasionally). But once you go live and start to grow, there is a point where the lambda cost equals the instance price. And with an instance, you can almost always do a lot more than that number. Again, that will work if your requests are predictable enough that you can see this number consistently over a large period, say, every week at least.
  - ddorian43 8y ago
    A dedicated box would for example handle that traffic at all times and still be cheaper. Dedicated servers are 3x+ cheaper.
toomuchtodo 8y ago
If you're running everything serverless at high volume, you're getting raked over the coals on compute. Dev time is expensive, but not that expensive.
vidarh 8y ago
Bandwidth on S3 costs something like 50x what I'm usually paying for bandwidth (Hetzner etc.) or 5x what you'll get from smaller cloud providers. You can be successful on AWS, but you're leaving money on the table, and for relatively commodity services it's just a question of time before a competitor realise they can do the same with much better margins and lower prices elsewhere. If your hosting is a small portion of your costs, that might not matter, so I have certainly run services on AWS too, and do in my current job as well, but it's a very expensive convenience. I've yet to come across any systems I know the internals off that couldn't cut hosting costs by moving off public cloud services.
- mseebach 8y ago
  The "commodity" distinction feel very significant here. Parent mentioned training videos, so probably very much not commodity. If you're selling something at $10/unit, it doesn't matter if your bandwidth costs are ¢0.05 or ¢2.5/unit. You're technically leaving money on the table, yes, but probably not enough to justify the added infrastructure complexity.
  - vidarh 8y ago
    > but probably not enough to justify the added infrastructure complexity. If you want to avoid infrastructure complexity, I'd go for dedicated hosting most of the time. Most of my past clients have ended up paying for more hours on operations for AWS setups than for dedicated. AWS and similar tends to force a lot of ceremony, some of which is good, but a lot of which is unnecessary on dedicated setups or on premises setups. But yes, if your costs per unit are that low, I've typically told clients it largely depends on what they're most comfortable with. Some then pick AWS and it's a perfectly good choice. What I'm seeing though, is that a lot of people pick AWS without first pricing out the options, and then later end up with expensive migrations to get off it.
    - mseebach 8y ago
      Yes, of course. "Added complexity" was meant in the context of already having decided that the AWS ecosystem is valuable (parent mentioned running serverless, so presumably that is the case).

Even if you're running everything else serverless and have no compute time at all? I know a VOD training service runs serverless with videos on S3 and they're very successful.

nvivo 8y ago

I don't have the numbers here, but I'm pretty sure the same idea applies for serverless. If you have a predictable load, you can always find a much cheaper alternative once you pass a certain threshold. The cloud is never about cost, it's about flexibility.

repsilat 8y ago
Predictable or flat/consistent? If my load is negligible in US weekends and outside of business hours, that's a factor of 2 or 3 you can theoretically save over baseline=peak with some "cloud on demand" service. It's not an order of magnitude, but it's something. Probably not worth the effort, for most, though, and I have no idea if "dedicated box" services can approximate something similar.
- nvivo 8y ago
  If you have a small number of requests over a large period, serverless is cheaper (that includes an api that is idle most of the time and peaks at a very high rate occasionally). But once you go live and start to grow, there is a point where the lambda cost equals the instance price. And with an instance, you can almost always do a lot more than that number. Again, that will work if your requests are predictable enough that you can see this number consistently over a large period, say, every week at least.
- ddorian43 8y ago
  A dedicated box would for example handle that traffic at all times and still be cheaper. Dedicated servers are 3x+ cheaper.

toomuchtodo 8y ago

If you're running everything serverless at high volume, you're getting raked over the coals on compute. Dev time is expensive, but not that expensive.

vidarh 8y ago

Bandwidth on S3 costs something like 50x what I'm usually paying for bandwidth (Hetzner etc.) or 5x what you'll get from smaller cloud providers. You can be successful on AWS, but you're leaving money on the table, and for relatively commodity services it's just a question of time before a competitor realise they can do the same with much better margins and lower prices elsewhere. If your hosting is a small portion of your costs, that might not matter, so I have certainly run services on AWS too, and do in my current job as well, but it's a very expensive convenience. I've yet to come across any systems I know the internals off that couldn't cut hosting costs by moving off public cloud services.

mseebach 8y ago
The "commodity" distinction feel very significant here. Parent mentioned training videos, so probably very much not commodity. If you're selling something at $10/unit, it doesn't matter if your bandwidth costs are ¢0.05 or ¢2.5/unit. You're technically leaving money on the table, yes, but probably not enough to justify the added infrastructure complexity.
- vidarh 8y ago
  > but probably not enough to justify the added infrastructure complexity. If you want to avoid infrastructure complexity, I'd go for dedicated hosting most of the time. Most of my past clients have ended up paying for more hours on operations for AWS setups than for dedicated. AWS and similar tends to force a lot of ceremony, some of which is good, but a lot of which is unnecessary on dedicated setups or on premises setups. But yes, if your costs per unit are that low, I've typically told clients it largely depends on what they're most comfortable with. Some then pick AWS and it's a perfectly good choice. What I'm seeing though, is that a lot of people pick AWS without first pricing out the options, and then later end up with expensive migrations to get off it.
  - mseebach 8y ago
    Yes, of course. "Added complexity" was meant in the context of already having decided that the AWS ecosystem is valuable (parent mentioned running serverless, so presumably that is the case).