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The author’s writing is engaging but he doesn’t really offer any solutions. Apparently AWS is amazing and open source software businesses are not treating their

by kfk 7y ago

The author’s writing is engaging but he doesn’t really offer any solutions. Apparently AWS is amazing and open source software businesses are not treating their customers well enough, not sure how this is useful to open source companies trying to survive this aws mess.

coldtea 7y ago
>The author’s writing is engaging but he doesn’t really offer any solutions. Isn't his whole article about how there really isn't any problem (since companies competed by AWS still do fine)?
guitarbill 7y ago
"Cloud" computing offerings are hard. AWS, for better or worse has an incredible amount of institutional knowledge on monitoring, metrics, and reliability. It's easy to sneer at this until you really think about it or try it yourself. Maybe this isn't the only thing though.. AWS' sites aren't great, and I love and use Redis. But look at RedisLabs site [0]. The buzzwords make me sick; where is the pricing? The Redis Enterprise "product" page is a wall of text [1]. The RedisInsight link [2] flat out gives me a "Warning: Potential Security Risk Ahead" in Firefox because their cert isn't valid. Cookie overlay: check. Obnoxious chat bot: check. Next. Elastic. Again, I've run Elasticsearch myself, it was a bit of a pain. And Elastic's site [3] is slightly better, at least there's a clear pricing tab. "Get Started with Elasticsearch" says "Watch Now", okay I guess it's a video... "Register to Watch"? Are you kidding me? How scummy is that? Okay, so compare that to DynamoDB's page [4], not quite the same, but it's what I get when I search DynamoDB. Pricing tab - yes, the pricing is very complicated, do I need on demand or the other thing? But at least it's laid out in detail without me logging in. Quick tag line ("Fast and flexible NoSQL database service for any scale"), non-auto-playing video with length before I load it, links to sample code. Great. (To be fair, the AWS Elasticsearch site is not quite as good [5], e.g. no sample code.) Sorry, bit of a rant. I want Redis and Elastic to succeed, and none of this takes a marketing genius. Their sites simply suck for me (but hey, not a CTO/CEO). [0] https://redislabs.com/ https://redislabs.com/ [1] https://redislabs.com/redis-enterprise/ https://redislabs.com/redis-enterprise/ [2] https://acdn-live-redislabs.ps-pantheon.com/redis-enterprise-visualization/redis-insight/ https://acdn-live-redislabs.ps-pantheon.com/redis-enterprise... [3] https://www.elastic.co/ https://www.elastic.co/ [4] https://aws.amazon.com/dynamodb/ https://aws.amazon.com/dynamodb/ [5] https://aws.amazon.com/elasticsearch-service/ https://aws.amazon.com/elasticsearch-service/
- kfk 7y ago
  Well I get it and I use aws too, but how are we supposed to fund new software then? Seems like aws will commoditize everything. Also aws is not necessarily offering the best solution either. In the analytics space they push stuff like Glue which is basically Spark with the problems of Spark, we have things like Dask that work great for analysts but hey no we are now convincing companies that spark fixes all problems. It feels like Oracle 2.0, pushing companies to adopt solutions that somehow work but are not optimal.
curryst 7y ago
I always post something like this on AWS threads, but AWS' greatest advantage is that there's like a 99% chance that AWS services are already greenlighted by the various regulatory teams inside a company. Sure, there might be a rubber stamp process where I have to get my boss to sign off on the spend to use AWS' version of Redis. But that's pretty much it, I can be up and running in a week or two. If I have to go to Redis directly for this stuff it's going to take me months to get anything working. First I'm going to have to justify why we need another product internally. Then I have to get buy in from my boss. Then there's going to be a bunch of calls between procurement and Redis. Then when we finally get licenses, I'll have to talk to security about how to secure this damn thing (because it won't work with IAM). Then I have to deploy it, set up monitoring, etc, etc. I honestly don't know how to get around this for open source companies. One thing would be to make pricing easy and transparent, and to not require the usual bullshittery around negotiating contracts. If I don't need anything special, there should be a page I can go to and input the sizing requirements for my license, have it spit out an invoice and email me a license when the invoice is paid. That way I can just take that to my boss and ask them to pay it, and avoid a lot of the inevitable "negotiations" that likely end up with the same contract.

by kfk 7y ago

coldtea 7y ago

>The author’s writing is engaging but he doesn’t really offer any solutions. Isn't his whole article about how there really isn't any problem (since companies competed by AWS still do fine)?

guitarbill 7y ago

"Cloud" computing offerings are hard. AWS, for better or worse has an incredible amount of institutional knowledge on monitoring, metrics, and reliability. It's easy to sneer at this until you really think about it or try it yourself. Maybe this isn't the only thing though.. AWS' sites aren't great, and I love and use Redis. But look at RedisLabs site [0]. The buzzwords make me sick; where is the pricing? The Redis Enterprise "product" page is a wall of text [1]. The RedisInsight link [2] flat out gives me a "Warning: Potential Security Risk Ahead" in Firefox because their cert isn't valid. Cookie overlay: check. Obnoxious chat bot: check. Next. Elastic. Again, I've run Elasticsearch myself, it was a bit of a pain. And Elastic's site [3] is slightly better, at least there's a clear pricing tab. "Get Started with Elasticsearch" says "Watch Now", okay I guess it's a video... "Register to Watch"? Are you kidding me? How scummy is that? Okay, so compare that to DynamoDB's page [4], not quite the same, but it's what I get when I search DynamoDB. Pricing tab - yes, the pricing is very complicated, do I need on demand or the other thing? But at least it's laid out in detail without me logging in. Quick tag line ("Fast and flexible NoSQL database service for any scale"), non-auto-playing video with length before I load it, links to sample code. Great. (To be fair, the AWS Elasticsearch site is not quite as good [5], e.g. no sample code.) Sorry, bit of a rant. I want Redis and Elastic to succeed, and none of this takes a marketing genius. Their sites simply suck for me (but hey, not a CTO/CEO). [0] https://redislabs.com/ https://redislabs.com/ [1] https://redislabs.com/redis-enterprise/ https://redislabs.com/redis-enterprise/ [2] https://acdn-live-redislabs.ps-pantheon.com/redis-enterprise-visualization/redis-insight/ https://acdn-live-redislabs.ps-pantheon.com/redis-enterprise... [3] https://www.elastic.co/ https://www.elastic.co/ [4] https://aws.amazon.com/dynamodb/ https://aws.amazon.com/dynamodb/ [5] https://aws.amazon.com/elasticsearch-service/ https://aws.amazon.com/elasticsearch-service/

kfk 7y ago
Well I get it and I use aws too, but how are we supposed to fund new software then? Seems like aws will commoditize everything. Also aws is not necessarily offering the best solution either. In the analytics space they push stuff like Glue which is basically Spark with the problems of Spark, we have things like Dask that work great for analysts but hey no we are now convincing companies that spark fixes all problems. It feels like Oracle 2.0, pushing companies to adopt solutions that somehow work but are not optimal.

curryst 7y ago

I always post something like this on AWS threads, but AWS' greatest advantage is that there's like a 99% chance that AWS services are already greenlighted by the various regulatory teams inside a company. Sure, there might be a rubber stamp process where I have to get my boss to sign off on the spend to use AWS' version of Redis. But that's pretty much it, I can be up and running in a week or two. If I have to go to Redis directly for this stuff it's going to take me months to get anything working. First I'm going to have to justify why we need another product internally. Then I have to get buy in from my boss. Then there's going to be a bunch of calls between procurement and Redis. Then when we finally get licenses, I'll have to talk to security about how to secure this damn thing (because it won't work with IAM). Then I have to deploy it, set up monitoring, etc, etc. I honestly don't know how to get around this for open source companies. One thing would be to make pricing easy and transparent, and to not require the usual bullshittery around negotiating contracts. If I don't need anything special, there should be a page I can go to and input the sizing requirements for my license, have it spit out an invoice and email me a license when the invoice is paid. That way I can just take that to my boss and ask them to pay it, and avoid a lot of the inevitable "negotiations" that likely end up with the same contract.