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There are reasonable concerns about AWS from non-retail too. AWS is using proprietary cloud services to lock in customers. Future increases in AWS's prices will

by AJ007 7y ago

There are reasonable concerns about AWS from non-retail too. AWS is using proprietary cloud services to lock in customers. Future increases in AWS's prices will be passed down to the end users. I don't see it as so much AWS/Google Cloud/Azure is bad, but, did you build something which is impossible to decouple from. That is an upstream cost risk. If a customer can seamlessly move between their own datacenters, AWS, Google, Azure, and so on, that is a good thing.

hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
> AWS is using proprietary cloud services to lock in customers. Future increases in AWS's prices will be passed down to the end users. That is true of every cloud, certainly of Azure and GCP. Building a "cloud independent" infrastructure is certainly possible, but it puts you at a huge disadvantage - you can't take advantage of any of the value-added services of the cloud provider.
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  >> lock in > certainly of Azure and GCP. Google's Kubernetes strategy means that this is currently not quite true of Google. Google must have decided that they were better off getting a large share of a smaller pie by creating an open sourcing Kubernetes. This seems quite likely to me: if Kubernetes "wins" then the profit margins will shrink due to competition but Google will be in a good position to become the premier Kubernetes hosting provider. And if Kubernetes wins, it'll be much harder for Google to lock in customers. For now and the foreseeable future both our and Google's incentives are aligned vis-a-vis open source Kubernetes. If K8S wins divergence will probably happen, but until then we'll enjoy the benefits.
  - hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
    This is no different from AWS, which fully supports Kubernetes (e.g. EKS). You can just as easily do a Kube deployment on either AWS or GCP that makes no use of cloud-specific services, but just like AWS, GCP has a ton of great services that are extremely useful but will tie you in to GCP.
    - bryanlarsen 7y ago
      That's proof that Google's Kubernetes strategy is working. They've forced AWS to create infrastructure that makes it easier to move off of AWS. Google is still a distant 3rd but without the Kubernetes strategy I think they'd be much worse off...
  - solidasparagus 7y ago
    Kubernetes absolutely does not mean no lock-in. The lock-in is just quieter (people will eventually realize this). Use higher-level services (or even long-tail features of low-level services) that are differentiated between cloud providers from k8s, you are locked in. Make k8s auth work cleanly with cloud auth, you're locked in. Rely on a cloud provider service to manage master and/or worker nodes, you're locked in. You can avoid lock-in by manually running a k8s cluster while using only the lowest-level services that every cloud providers offers (VM, block store, NFS, load balancer, maybe one or two others), but most people don't actually want to do this.
    - bryanlarsen 7y ago
      The point is that Google is currently actively working towards reducing lock-in. Storage is one area where I've seen some good movement. Microsoft is also contributing a lot of good stuff to make Kubernetes migration easier. We'll never get to zero, and I'm sure that Google & Microsoft will eventually put more emphasis on complementary products that increase lock-in. But right now it's trending in the right direction.
      - solidasparagus 7y ago
        I don't agree at all. The current trend is for cloud providers to create k8s operators as a way to lock you in by using cloud services in the background. The Spark Operator for Kubernetes is one example of this that was created by Google. It seems like all the major clouds are doing it (I don't actually have an Azure example, but I imagine you could find some).
solidasparagus 7y ago
> Future increases in AWS's prices will be passed down to the end users. 11 years in, AWS has never raised prices for any service AFAIK despite holding a near monopoly on public cloud for quite some time.
WorldMaker 7y ago
> There are reasonable concerns about AWS from non-retail too. Also, Amazon's "everything store" mentality pushes it up against industries that have never considered themselves retail before, expanding the definition of "retail" to the breaking point in some cases. A lot of companies have been surprised when Amazon expanded into an area they didn't expect, and given time a lot more companies might because there hasn't yet seemed to be a stop to Amazon's "everything store" expansion.

by AJ007 7y ago

hn_throwaway_99 7y ago

> AWS is using proprietary cloud services to lock in customers. Future increases in AWS's prices will be passed down to the end users. That is true of every cloud, certainly of Azure and GCP. Building a "cloud independent" infrastructure is certainly possible, but it puts you at a huge disadvantage - you can't take advantage of any of the value-added services of the cloud provider.

bryanlarsen 7y ago
>> lock in > certainly of Azure and GCP. Google's Kubernetes strategy means that this is currently not quite true of Google. Google must have decided that they were better off getting a large share of a smaller pie by creating an open sourcing Kubernetes. This seems quite likely to me: if Kubernetes "wins" then the profit margins will shrink due to competition but Google will be in a good position to become the premier Kubernetes hosting provider. And if Kubernetes wins, it'll be much harder for Google to lock in customers. For now and the foreseeable future both our and Google's incentives are aligned vis-a-vis open source Kubernetes. If K8S wins divergence will probably happen, but until then we'll enjoy the benefits.
- hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
  This is no different from AWS, which fully supports Kubernetes (e.g. EKS). You can just as easily do a Kube deployment on either AWS or GCP that makes no use of cloud-specific services, but just like AWS, GCP has a ton of great services that are extremely useful but will tie you in to GCP.
  - bryanlarsen 7y ago
    That's proof that Google's Kubernetes strategy is working. They've forced AWS to create infrastructure that makes it easier to move off of AWS. Google is still a distant 3rd but without the Kubernetes strategy I think they'd be much worse off...
- solidasparagus 7y ago
  Kubernetes absolutely does not mean no lock-in. The lock-in is just quieter (people will eventually realize this). Use higher-level services (or even long-tail features of low-level services) that are differentiated between cloud providers from k8s, you are locked in. Make k8s auth work cleanly with cloud auth, you're locked in. Rely on a cloud provider service to manage master and/or worker nodes, you're locked in. You can avoid lock-in by manually running a k8s cluster while using only the lowest-level services that every cloud providers offers (VM, block store, NFS, load balancer, maybe one or two others), but most people don't actually want to do this.
  - bryanlarsen 7y ago
    The point is that Google is currently actively working towards reducing lock-in. Storage is one area where I've seen some good movement. Microsoft is also contributing a lot of good stuff to make Kubernetes migration easier. We'll never get to zero, and I'm sure that Google & Microsoft will eventually put more emphasis on complementary products that increase lock-in. But right now it's trending in the right direction.
    - solidasparagus 7y ago
      I don't agree at all. The current trend is for cloud providers to create k8s operators as a way to lock you in by using cloud services in the background. The Spark Operator for Kubernetes is one example of this that was created by Google. It seems like all the major clouds are doing it (I don't actually have an Azure example, but I imagine you could find some).

solidasparagus 7y ago

> Future increases in AWS's prices will be passed down to the end users. 11 years in, AWS has never raised prices for any service AFAIK despite holding a near monopoly on public cloud for quite some time.

WorldMaker 7y ago

> There are reasonable concerns about AWS from non-retail too. Also, Amazon's "everything store" mentality pushes it up against industries that have never considered themselves retail before, expanding the definition of "retail" to the breaking point in some cases. A lot of companies have been surprised when Amazon expanded into an area they didn't expect, and given time a lot more companies might because there hasn't yet seemed to be a stop to Amazon's "everything store" expansion.