6 ms·

Microsoft buying Github probably is a big reason Gitlab is a bit sour about Azure I imagine. Because overall this reads more like a sponsored post. Google prob

by kerng 8y ago

Microsoft buying Github probably is a big reason Gitlab is a bit sour about Azure I imagine. Because overall this reads more like a sponsored post. Google probably offered a lot of money (good deal) to encourage them to move also.

qaq 8y ago
Not sure why you are getting down-voted not having to pay your primary competitor for services obviously had influence on this decision.
- earenndil 8y ago
  Netflix uses aws, even though amazon has amazon prime video. They don't seem to have no inclination to move.
  - nopzor 8y ago
    netflix pays aws for a very small and non strategic part of their infra. they dont move bits for videos to their users via aws. that would be insane.
    - scurvy 8y ago
      Netflix also arbitrages compute and encode across all major clouds depending on spot pricing. They treat the commodity...like a commodity.
      - lawnchair_larry 8y ago
        Since netflix knows they will always be encoding, why would they pay for cloud provider overhead at all? It would seem to be far cheaper to have a dedicated fleet.
        dmitriid 8y ago
        At Netflix scale it’s probably cheaper to leverage cloud solutions than to maintain (build, equip, set up, maintain, upate, upgrade) their own data center.
        wongarsu 8y ago
        If your load is fairly constant, maintaining your own servers is cheaper from the moment where you need two physical servers. And even at Netflix scale "maintain their own datacenter" might mean renting a few racks in a data center of your choice. The arguments for cloud look different: services offered by the cloud providers, higher flexibility, no capex (though at small scale you can rent and at Netflix scale capex is presumably not an issue) or better scaling in highly variable loads. Netflix encoding servers probably have very variable load since releases vary depending on season (like the flood of films for Christmas).
        dmitriid 8y ago
        I'v e found that "your own servers" vs. "rent a cloud" are a bit weird as a company grows. First one is cheaper, then the other, then the first one again, then the other again, it continues like this a few times. At one point it's quite possible that a combination of the two is the cheaper option. And yes, you're completely right, load variability plays a huge role in all this.
        chx 8y ago
        That is very odd and doesn't mesh with my experience at all. Usually the server cost is linear with growth (more or less) so if the per unit cost is fixed (more or less) then how on earth would such a swap occur.
        dmitriid 8y ago
        Depends on the size. When operating your own servers, you need to recreate all that cloud providers do for you: - maintain the physical machines - build or rent data centers - have people to operate, maintain, upgrade the machines - set up, build, maintain, update, upgrade infrastructure for your projects to work on your machines All these costs are not insignificant when you need more and more machines. And as it was mentioned above, they don't do well when demand is variable: when you no longer need as many machines, you can't just decommission them. When demand spikes, you can't install new servers instantly.
    - odensc 8y ago
      Yeah, don't they colo directly with ISPs for their video CDN?
      - philjohn 8y ago
        Not quite - they provide what is essentially an edge cache.
- detaro 8y ago
  The migration decision publicly announced months before Microsoft announced they'd buy GitHub?
grosswait 8y ago
Weren't they having performance problems with Azure storage long before the GitHub acquisition announcement?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
yegle 8y ago
Not entirely due to the acquisition. The migration repo started back in Dec 1, 2017: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/migration/commit/ab5bf6b03ffc08e4dd2e08a1484a517c642e643c https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/migration/commit/ab5bf6b03ffc0...
throwaway34901 8y ago
Seriously HN?! Strategic decisions aren't made like this. They take a ridiculous amount of scrutiny & especially one like this that impacts engineering day to day not to mention the entire infrastructure roadmap. On the contrary, there's probably decent product alignment with Gsuite (proven by Microsoft's acquisition of Github) & opportunity for Gitlab potentially getting acquired by Google.

by kerng 8y ago

qaq 8y ago

Not sure why you are getting down-voted not having to pay your primary competitor for services obviously had influence on this decision.

earenndil 8y ago
Netflix uses aws, even though amazon has amazon prime video. They don't seem to have no inclination to move.
- nopzor 8y ago
  netflix pays aws for a very small and non strategic part of their infra. they dont move bits for videos to their users via aws. that would be insane.
  - scurvy 8y ago
    Netflix also arbitrages compute and encode across all major clouds depending on spot pricing. They treat the commodity...like a commodity.
    - lawnchair_larry 8y ago
      Since netflix knows they will always be encoding, why would they pay for cloud provider overhead at all? It would seem to be far cheaper to have a dedicated fleet.
      - dmitriid 8y ago
        At Netflix scale it’s probably cheaper to leverage cloud solutions than to maintain (build, equip, set up, maintain, upate, upgrade) their own data center.
        wongarsu 8y ago
        If your load is fairly constant, maintaining your own servers is cheaper from the moment where you need two physical servers. And even at Netflix scale "maintain their own datacenter" might mean renting a few racks in a data center of your choice. The arguments for cloud look different: services offered by the cloud providers, higher flexibility, no capex (though at small scale you can rent and at Netflix scale capex is presumably not an issue) or better scaling in highly variable loads. Netflix encoding servers probably have very variable load since releases vary depending on season (like the flood of films for Christmas).
        dmitriid 8y ago
        I'v e found that "your own servers" vs. "rent a cloud" are a bit weird as a company grows. First one is cheaper, then the other, then the first one again, then the other again, it continues like this a few times. At one point it's quite possible that a combination of the two is the cheaper option. And yes, you're completely right, load variability plays a huge role in all this.
        chx 8y ago
        That is very odd and doesn't mesh with my experience at all. Usually the server cost is linear with growth (more or less) so if the per unit cost is fixed (more or less) then how on earth would such a swap occur.
        dmitriid 8y ago
        Depends on the size. When operating your own servers, you need to recreate all that cloud providers do for you: - maintain the physical machines - build or rent data centers - have people to operate, maintain, upgrade the machines - set up, build, maintain, update, upgrade infrastructure for your projects to work on your machines All these costs are not insignificant when you need more and more machines. And as it was mentioned above, they don't do well when demand is variable: when you no longer need as many machines, you can't just decommission them. When demand spikes, you can't install new servers instantly.
  - odensc 8y ago
    Yeah, don't they colo directly with ISPs for their video CDN?
    - philjohn 8y ago
      Not quite - they provide what is essentially an edge cache.
detaro 8y ago
The migration decision publicly announced months before Microsoft announced they'd buy GitHub?

grosswait 8y ago

Weren't they having performance problems with Azure storage long before the GitHub acquisition announcement?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

yegle 8y ago

Not entirely due to the acquisition. The migration repo started back in Dec 1, 2017: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/migration/commit/ab5bf6b03ffc08e4dd2e08a1484a517c642e643c https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/migration/commit/ab5bf6b03ffc0...

throwaway34901 8y ago

Seriously HN?! Strategic decisions aren't made like this. They take a ridiculous amount of scrutiny & especially one like this that impacts engineering day to day not to mention the entire infrastructure roadmap. On the contrary, there's probably decent product alignment with Gsuite (proven by Microsoft's acquisition of Github) & opportunity for Gitlab potentially getting acquired by Google.