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Maybe if your load is unusually extremely erratic. In the vast majority of cases, you could purchase 2-3x more than you need in bare metal hosting resources (wi

by hhw 7y ago

Maybe if your load is unusually extremely erratic. In the vast majority of cases, you could purchase 2-3x more than you need in bare metal hosting resources (with data centre and hardware operations already outsourced), making scaling not an issue, and still see significant cost savings compared to public cloud which is typically 6-7x the cost for equivalent resources.

scarface74 7y ago
If all you care about is running a bunch of VMs yes. But if you’re just running a bunch of VMs and using cloud hosting - you’re doing it wrong. - we don’t want to maintain our own build servers. We just use CodeBuild with one of the prebuilt Docker containers or create a custom one. When we push our code to Github, CodeBuild brings up the Docker container, runs the build and the unit tests and puts the artifacts on S3. - We don’t want to maintain our own messaging, sftp, database, scheduler, load balancer, oath, object storage, servers etc. We don’t have to, AWS does that. - We don’t want to manage our own app and web servers. We just use Lambda and Fargate and give AWS a zip file/docker container and it runs it for us. - We need to run a temporary stress test environment or want to do a quick proof of concept, we create s Cloud Formation template, spin up the entire environment, run our tests with different configurations and kill it. When we want to spin it up again, we just run the template. We don’t have to pay for a staff of people to babysit our infrastructure between our business support contract with AWS and the MSP, we can get all of the troubleshooting and busy work support as needed. I’m a software engineer/architect by title, but if you look at my resume from another angle, I would be qualified to be an AWS architect. I just don’t enjoy the infrastructure side that much.
- dijit 7y ago
  >I just don’t enjoy the infrastructure side that much. That's fair, that's totally your right. However, you're talking about absolute cost and unfortunately you're examples weave through true and false quite frenetically. > - we don’t want to maintain our own build servers. We just use CodeBuild with one of the prebuilt Docker containers or create a custom one. When we push our code to Github, CodeBuild brings up the Docker container, runs the build and the unit tests and puts the artifacts on S3. Like all things business, "want" and "cost" are different, in this case, depending on your size of course, it could easily be cheaper to have a dedicated "build engineer" maintaining a build farm. This is how the majority of people do it. (I work in the video games industry, it's _MUCH_ cheaper to do it this way for us) > - We don’t want to maintain our own messaging, sftp, database, scheduler, load balancer, oath, object storage, servers etc. We don’t have to, AWS does that. Again, those are "wants", TCO can be much lower when out of the cloud. But again, depends on scale. (as in, lower scale is cheaper on cloud, not larger scale). > - We don’t want to manage our own app and web servers. We just use Lambda and Fargate and give AWS a zip file/docker container and it runs it for us. I mean, 1 sysadmin can automate/orchestrate literally thousands of webservers. >- We need to run a temporary stress test environment or want to do a quick proof of concept, we create s Cloud Formation template, spin up the entire environment, run our tests with different configurations and kill it. When we want to spin it up again, we just run the template. Yes, this is a real strength of cloud. > We don’t have to pay for a staff of people to babysit our infrastructure between our business support contract with AWS and the MSP, we can get all of the troubleshooting and busy work support as needed. Yes, but you are paying "overhead" for all of that, and not having talented engineers on your payroll who understand your business critical systems is, in my opinion, foolish. I've dealt with vendor support and it's incredibly hit and miss, and it's much more "miss" when you're a smaller customer to the vendor. Of course, this is anecdotal.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    I’m not disagreeing with you. The only times you save money by going to the cloud is by reducing the number of people you need or if you have a lot of elasticity in demand. I would never recommend anyone going to the cloud just to reproduce an infrastructure they could do at a colo. Like all things business, "want" and "cost" are different, in this case, depending on your size of course, it could easily be cheaper to have a dedicated "build engineer" maintaining a build farm. This is how the majority of people do it. (I work in the video games industry, it's _MUCH_ cheaper to do it this way for us) That’s $80K to $100K. You can buy a lot on AWS for that price... Again, those are "wants", TCO can be much lower when out of the cloud. But again, depends on scale. (as in, lower scale is cheaper on cloud, not larger scale). That’s another $100K to $200K.... I mean, 1 sysadmin can automate/orchestrate literally thousands of webservers. That’s yet another $100K. You’re up to at least $250K - $500K In salaries. Yes, but you are paying "overhead" for all of that, and not having talented engineers on your payroll who understand your business critical systems is, in my opinion, foolish. I am one of the “talented engineers” that’s why I mentioned I could go out and get a job tomorrow as an AWS architect - my resume is very much buzzword compliant with what it would take from both a development, Devops, and netops side to hold my own in a small to medium size company. I just find that side of the fence boring - we outsource the boring work or the “undifferentiated heavy lifting”. As that side got too much for me, we hired one dedicated sysadmin type person to coordinate between what he would do himself, our clients and our MSP. I’m actually trotted our as the “infrastructure architect” to our clients even though my official title and day to day work is a developer. I haven’t embarrassed us yet. I've dealt with vendor support and it's incredibly hit and miss, and it's much more "miss" when you're a smaller customer to the vendor. Of course, this is anecdotal. I agree completely. If it’s something complex, I either do it myself or have very detailed requirements on what our needs are. But honestly, the more managed services you use, the less you have to do that part.
    - cthalupa 7y ago
      I'll note that he says he works in the video game industry, where infra engineer/sysad/etc salaries are, in my anecdotal experience, significantly lower than even run of the mill positions in "regular" companies, and especially lower than SV/startup/big tech companies. Offers I've received from several game companies were less than 50% of what I had from other companies, and I was told when I tried to negotiate that they wanted people that were passionate about games and what they were building, and not people just looking for a cushy job. That can change the economics on the situation.

by hhw 7y ago

scarface74 7y ago

If all you care about is running a bunch of VMs yes. But if you’re just running a bunch of VMs and using cloud hosting - you’re doing it wrong. - we don’t want to maintain our own build servers. We just use CodeBuild with one of the prebuilt Docker containers or create a custom one. When we push our code to Github, CodeBuild brings up the Docker container, runs the build and the unit tests and puts the artifacts on S3. - We don’t want to maintain our own messaging, sftp, database, scheduler, load balancer, oath, object storage, servers etc. We don’t have to, AWS does that. - We don’t want to manage our own app and web servers. We just use Lambda and Fargate and give AWS a zip file/docker container and it runs it for us. - We need to run a temporary stress test environment or want to do a quick proof of concept, we create s Cloud Formation template, spin up the entire environment, run our tests with different configurations and kill it. When we want to spin it up again, we just run the template. We don’t have to pay for a staff of people to babysit our infrastructure between our business support contract with AWS and the MSP, we can get all of the troubleshooting and busy work support as needed. I’m a software engineer/architect by title, but if you look at my resume from another angle, I would be qualified to be an AWS architect. I just don’t enjoy the infrastructure side that much.

dijit 7y ago
>I just don’t enjoy the infrastructure side that much. That's fair, that's totally your right. However, you're talking about absolute cost and unfortunately you're examples weave through true and false quite frenetically. > - we don’t want to maintain our own build servers. We just use CodeBuild with one of the prebuilt Docker containers or create a custom one. When we push our code to Github, CodeBuild brings up the Docker container, runs the build and the unit tests and puts the artifacts on S3. Like all things business, "want" and "cost" are different, in this case, depending on your size of course, it could easily be cheaper to have a dedicated "build engineer" maintaining a build farm. This is how the majority of people do it. (I work in the video games industry, it's _MUCH_ cheaper to do it this way for us) > - We don’t want to maintain our own messaging, sftp, database, scheduler, load balancer, oath, object storage, servers etc. We don’t have to, AWS does that. Again, those are "wants", TCO can be much lower when out of the cloud. But again, depends on scale. (as in, lower scale is cheaper on cloud, not larger scale). > - We don’t want to manage our own app and web servers. We just use Lambda and Fargate and give AWS a zip file/docker container and it runs it for us. I mean, 1 sysadmin can automate/orchestrate literally thousands of webservers. >- We need to run a temporary stress test environment or want to do a quick proof of concept, we create s Cloud Formation template, spin up the entire environment, run our tests with different configurations and kill it. When we want to spin it up again, we just run the template. Yes, this is a real strength of cloud. > We don’t have to pay for a staff of people to babysit our infrastructure between our business support contract with AWS and the MSP, we can get all of the troubleshooting and busy work support as needed. Yes, but you are paying "overhead" for all of that, and not having talented engineers on your payroll who understand your business critical systems is, in my opinion, foolish. I've dealt with vendor support and it's incredibly hit and miss, and it's much more "miss" when you're a smaller customer to the vendor. Of course, this is anecdotal.
- scarface74 7y ago
  I’m not disagreeing with you. The only times you save money by going to the cloud is by reducing the number of people you need or if you have a lot of elasticity in demand. I would never recommend anyone going to the cloud just to reproduce an infrastructure they could do at a colo. Like all things business, "want" and "cost" are different, in this case, depending on your size of course, it could easily be cheaper to have a dedicated "build engineer" maintaining a build farm. This is how the majority of people do it. (I work in the video games industry, it's _MUCH_ cheaper to do it this way for us) That’s $80K to $100K. You can buy a lot on AWS for that price... Again, those are "wants", TCO can be much lower when out of the cloud. But again, depends on scale. (as in, lower scale is cheaper on cloud, not larger scale). That’s another $100K to $200K.... I mean, 1 sysadmin can automate/orchestrate literally thousands of webservers. That’s yet another $100K. You’re up to at least $250K - $500K In salaries. Yes, but you are paying "overhead" for all of that, and not having talented engineers on your payroll who understand your business critical systems is, in my opinion, foolish. I am one of the “talented engineers” that’s why I mentioned I could go out and get a job tomorrow as an AWS architect - my resume is very much buzzword compliant with what it would take from both a development, Devops, and netops side to hold my own in a small to medium size company. I just find that side of the fence boring - we outsource the boring work or the “undifferentiated heavy lifting”. As that side got too much for me, we hired one dedicated sysadmin type person to coordinate between what he would do himself, our clients and our MSP. I’m actually trotted our as the “infrastructure architect” to our clients even though my official title and day to day work is a developer. I haven’t embarrassed us yet. I've dealt with vendor support and it's incredibly hit and miss, and it's much more "miss" when you're a smaller customer to the vendor. Of course, this is anecdotal. I agree completely. If it’s something complex, I either do it myself or have very detailed requirements on what our needs are. But honestly, the more managed services you use, the less you have to do that part.
  - cthalupa 7y ago
    I'll note that he says he works in the video game industry, where infra engineer/sysad/etc salaries are, in my anecdotal experience, significantly lower than even run of the mill positions in "regular" companies, and especially lower than SV/startup/big tech companies. Offers I've received from several game companies were less than 50% of what I had from other companies, and I was told when I tried to negotiate that they wanted people that were passionate about games and what they were building, and not people just looking for a cushy job. That can change the economics on the situation.