9 ms·

>In June of 2017 we were serving approximately 46M websites, and we did so with 11 full time staff and an annual budget of $2.61M. Today we serve nearly 192M we

by nwsm 7y ago

>In June of 2017 we were serving approximately 46M websites, and we did so with 11 full time staff and an annual budget of $2.61M. Today we serve nearly 192M websites with 13 full time staff and an annual budget of approximately $3.35M. That's awesome. Congrats

oh_sigh 7y ago
Those two extra staff are expensive, but worth it.
- aneutron 7y ago
  Honestly, I don't know anything about running a business. But if there's one thing I learned in engineering, it's the great if it ain't broke, don't fix it. (I know you're joking)But even if they're costly, if they keep the service running and bring in funds, why would anyone risk damaging their business and start cutting costs ?
  - three_seagrass 7y ago
    In grad school, my MBA-level technology course had a case on Zara and their POS software. The case problem was that the software was running on MS-DOS, had a janky text-based interface, but managed to work well for Zara's fast-fashion inventory. The 'right' solution for the case was to not change anything at all.
    - meesles 7y ago
      Just curious how one would know if it was the 'right' solution without having tried other solutions? I find it hard to believe that any business would not benefit from moving from an ancient computer system to one with error validations and better tooling so that their boots on the ground can make less mistakes. Forget the cost of transitioning since at scale that's a whole executive job function, but purely from a day-to-day I don't understand how what you said can be true.
      - three_seagrass 7y ago
        That's why it was taught as a business case, because it forces you to look at the requirements for switching and evaluate the cost/benefit of the action. Even passenger jets still use floppy disks. AFAIK Zara did update their POS system later though, to be more compatible with payment device hardware.
- tomnipotent 7y ago
  Assume only ~70% is staff. Requires more than just payroll to run a company.
- thomk 7y ago
  FYI: The parent comment is a (pretty funny) joke.
- Townley 7y ago
  Seriously... they're serving 146M sites on their own
  - tpmx 7y ago
    The scale isn't really the major issue here, I think. Assume each site makes one certificate issue request per month: 146 * 10^6 / (30 * 24* 3600) ~= 56 reqs/sec. Maybe double or triple the number to account for office hour-related peak hours. I don't even think sharding would be required to handle that, strictly speaking. A single medium-to-high end machine could probably handle billions of sites this way, assuming everything has been done right (I assume it has). I do however think a lot work has to go into: a) developing/documenting client tools b) developing/maintaining the server codebase c) developing/documenting/maintaining security protocols d) devops for the server(s) doing the key signing e) devops for maintaining security, according to the protocols developed and so on...
    - shdh 7y ago
      Certbot [1] is simple and efficient to work with. [1] https://certbot.eff.org/about/ https://certbot.eff.org/about/
      - tpmx 7y ago
        Who pays for the development of certbot? EFF or Letsencrypt?
AdamJacobMuller 7y ago
Glad to see they aren't going the way of wikimedia. They could pretty easily raise way more money and bloat their budget to an absurd degree, it takes a very disciplined focus to avoid boat in the face of absurd success.
- bootloop 7y ago
  Time will tell. Wikipedia has been around for much longer.
  - AdamJacobMuller 7y ago
    Sure, but, we can hope for them to do the right thing and praise them as and when they do.
- jtl999 7y ago
  What are your issues with Wikimedia? The (somewhat annoying) donation banners?
  - shp0ngle 7y ago
    The budgets are rising exponentially each year, apparently
    - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
      And still not even a spec on the chart compared to the other websites of their size.
      - xvector 7y ago
        But they blatantly lie to the public when they say they need donations to continue Wikipedia. If you look at the expense report, they absolutely don't; Wikipedia is a mote of dust compared to the amount that is fundraised every year. It's just pure greed. These sort of disinformation campaigns by nonprofits should be illegal.
brlewis 7y ago
That's less than $0.02 per site served. Yes, awesome!
aTOmPluS 7y ago
Everything in AtOmXpLuS.CoM
- asbfasdfdsfsdfd 7y ago
  222w

by nwsm 7y ago

oh_sigh 7y ago

Those two extra staff are expensive, but worth it.

aneutron 7y ago
Honestly, I don't know anything about running a business. But if there's one thing I learned in engineering, it's the great if it ain't broke, don't fix it. (I know you're joking)But even if they're costly, if they keep the service running and bring in funds, why would anyone risk damaging their business and start cutting costs ?
- three_seagrass 7y ago
  In grad school, my MBA-level technology course had a case on Zara and their POS software. The case problem was that the software was running on MS-DOS, had a janky text-based interface, but managed to work well for Zara's fast-fashion inventory. The 'right' solution for the case was to not change anything at all.
  - meesles 7y ago
    Just curious how one would know if it was the 'right' solution without having tried other solutions? I find it hard to believe that any business would not benefit from moving from an ancient computer system to one with error validations and better tooling so that their boots on the ground can make less mistakes. Forget the cost of transitioning since at scale that's a whole executive job function, but purely from a day-to-day I don't understand how what you said can be true.
    - three_seagrass 7y ago
      That's why it was taught as a business case, because it forces you to look at the requirements for switching and evaluate the cost/benefit of the action. Even passenger jets still use floppy disks. AFAIK Zara did update their POS system later though, to be more compatible with payment device hardware.
tomnipotent 7y ago
Assume only ~70% is staff. Requires more than just payroll to run a company.
thomk 7y ago
FYI: The parent comment is a (pretty funny) joke.
Townley 7y ago
Seriously... they're serving 146M sites on their own
- tpmx 7y ago
  The scale isn't really the major issue here, I think. Assume each site makes one certificate issue request per month: 146 * 10^6 / (30 * 24* 3600) ~= 56 reqs/sec. Maybe double or triple the number to account for office hour-related peak hours. I don't even think sharding would be required to handle that, strictly speaking. A single medium-to-high end machine could probably handle billions of sites this way, assuming everything has been done right (I assume it has). I do however think a lot work has to go into: a) developing/documenting client tools b) developing/maintaining the server codebase c) developing/documenting/maintaining security protocols d) devops for the server(s) doing the key signing e) devops for maintaining security, according to the protocols developed and so on...
  - shdh 7y ago
    Certbot [1] is simple and efficient to work with. [1] https://certbot.eff.org/about/ https://certbot.eff.org/about/
    - tpmx 7y ago
      Who pays for the development of certbot? EFF or Letsencrypt?

AdamJacobMuller 7y ago

Glad to see they aren't going the way of wikimedia. They could pretty easily raise way more money and bloat their budget to an absurd degree, it takes a very disciplined focus to avoid boat in the face of absurd success.

bootloop 7y ago
Time will tell. Wikipedia has been around for much longer.
- AdamJacobMuller 7y ago
  Sure, but, we can hope for them to do the right thing and praise them as and when they do.
jtl999 7y ago
What are your issues with Wikimedia? The (somewhat annoying) donation banners?
- shp0ngle 7y ago
  The budgets are rising exponentially each year, apparently
  - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
    And still not even a spec on the chart compared to the other websites of their size.
    - xvector 7y ago
      But they blatantly lie to the public when they say they need donations to continue Wikipedia. If you look at the expense report, they absolutely don't; Wikipedia is a mote of dust compared to the amount that is fundraised every year. It's just pure greed. These sort of disinformation campaigns by nonprofits should be illegal.

brlewis 7y ago

That's less than $0.02 per site served. Yes, awesome!

aTOmPluS 7y ago

Everything in AtOmXpLuS.CoM

asbfasdfdsfsdfd 7y ago
222w