5 ms·

so, uh, I'm not weighing in on the job stuff... but I suggest you check your numbers on how hosting in the public cloud is cheaper than your own data centers.

• empath75 8y ago
  Amazon etc negotiate prices for large accounts so the price you pay will not be the same price that a Netflix pays.
  • lsc 8y ago
    Sure, and it's possible OP really is saving money by renting their hardware instead of owning. I don't know the details of their needs or of their costs or what cloud provider they are moving to or what deal they cut with that provider. I'm just saying, there's currently a huge push to rent your essential services from service providers such as amazon, and from what I've seen, it's pretty easy to "move to the cloud" and then find that your total cost goes up pretty dramatically vs. owning hardware. I mean, yea, "cloud" does make sense sometimes. But... it is sold as being cheaper, and quite often it is not. Even if the rates look good up front, you've got the same problem that you have when leasing commercial realestate from professionals; they are professionals, which means that when it comes time to renew the lease, the rate will go up to match what renting something similar would cost from a competitor, plus slightly less than whatever they think it will cost you to move. If you can't switch cloud providers and your cloud provider knows it, you can count on your negotiated rates going up next contract renewal.
    • mmt 8y ago
      > it's possible OP really is saving money by renting their hardware instead of owning. Is it, though? Other than the special case of Netflix, it strains credibility that any cloud provider would be willing to give enough of a discount to match, let alone beat, ones own hardware. How would they make money? This can be especially true if one "unfairly" compares a cloud provider's relatively expensive hardware choices to ones own cheaper choices. For example, AWS with dual 10GE motherboards and CPUs that weren't the best performance-per-dollar when they bought them, if all you need is single gigabit (and don't need particularly high single-core CPU speed). > the rate will go up to match what renting something similar would cost from a competitor, plus slightly less than whatever they think it will cost you to move. Fortunately, there's an upper bound, which is the public price, which has, at least historically, been coming down. Also, AWS has the spot instance market, which can provide downward price pressure from even that ceiling.
      • lsc 8y ago
        >Is it, though? Other than the special case of Netflix, it strains credibility that any cloud provider would be willing to give enough of a discount to match, let alone beat, ones own hardware. How would they make money? Right now, as I understand it, Uber is losing money driving me to work every day, and I'm not really sure how they will ever make a profit off of that. if they double their prices? I'm gonna buy a car, drive my own self to work, and use uber once a week when I go to the bar. I don't really see how buying fake market share (rather,market share that only exists when you are dumping) helps them when it comes time to not dump anymore. Point being, there are plenty of people who are willing to sell two dollar bills for a dollar when the economy is hot. (I'm not suggesting amazon does this... but they certainly could. It's possible. ) Even in more rational markets, loss leaders are a big thing, and in leasing situations, where it's hard to move once you are in? loss leaders are a really common sales tactic. How often have you gotten "first month free" rent deals on one year leases, that work out to below market for the first year (because of the free first month) but above market after that, even if they don't actually raise the rent? Datacenter leases often have a similar 'ramp up' period, where you pay less at the beginning of a contract than towards the end, even not counting the fact that they jack up your bill by however much they think it will cost you to leave. I mean, these all can be really good deals if you know that it's easy for you to move later,and it's certainly possible (though maybe not easy) to setup your infrastructure so you can switch cloud providers with little cost. >Fortunately, there's an upper bound, which is the public price This is true...but that's a pretty high upper bound, when you compare to owning hardware/leasing pipe and power at all but the smallest scale. >which has, at least historically, been coming down. Historically, the cost of compute has come down, though slower than the cost of hardware (at least until lately) the cost of bandwidth has come down... much more slowly. >Also, AWS has the spot instance market, which can provide downward price pressure from even that ceiling. I think spot instances are a difference in kind (and actually a really great deal, if you have a workload that can be interrupted like that) - but most workloads I have worked with, especially in corp, don't really work that way.