9 ms·

Engine Yard AppCloud: free 500 hours for new customers

60 points by dirtyhand 16y ago

dirtyhand 16y ago
This is huge for Rails consulting companies. Hopefully we can now convince one of our clients to switch over to EY AppCloud from Bluehost.
- tmornini_ey 16y ago
  So glad to hear that, let me (@tmornini) know if I can help. We also have a partner program for Rails consulting companies, you should check that out too!
- kwis 16y ago
  I'm surprised by this reaction. It's less than three weeks of hosting. I can't imagine being meaningfully swayed by that.
  - tsaleh 16y ago
    We considered giving more time on smaller instances, but in the end we felt our customers are more concerned with getting production sites up and running. So we're giving 500 hours of time on instances highly suited for public facing sites with sizable traffic.
  - tmornini_ey 16y ago
    No, we don't expect many will make a decision based upon 500 free hours, but we do expect many will give us a try, and make their decision based upon the experience they have during their 500 hour trial. :-)
    - kwis 16y ago
      Sure. I think it's a potentially effective promotion for exactly the reason you describe. (free test, and if they're not actively dissatisfied, switching costs will likely cause them to stick with you.) That's an idea worth testing. I just can't understand the parent post indicating that it's 'huge for rails consulting companies'. After all, rails consulting companies are sending out five digit monthly invoices. A $150 discount on the first month of hosting is a rounding error in that context.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
      - drnicwilliams 16y ago
        Ha, that's possibly true as a percentage of total fees. Hopefully the total fees paid to Engine Yard will always be a rounding error in the context of consulting fees! :) We're investigating other benefits for our Development Partners too. Any thoughts?
  - tmornini_ey 16y ago
    Ah, I see! We knew that consulting shops would like this because it allows them to get an account set up without a credit card, and ask the client to complete the signup process, including handing over their credit card. :-)
  - dirtyhand 16y ago
    Clients with limited budgets are easily sticker shocked by hosting costs. Having the option to bundle 20 days of free production hosting is a great addition to any development service. EY AppCloud is a great service and we hate to see clients opt out without giving it a try.
andymoe 16y ago
This hit a nerve for me. I keep going back and looking at Engine Yard Hoping there will be something there for me but I just can't justify moving from Heroku for the ruby stuff. They have so many knobs to turn and a nice low entry point for very small apps that can be cranked up easily. It's this low barrier to entry that Engine Yard is missing and free for three weeks is not a substitute for this. AppCloud seems to be (and I hate to use this word) "just" a thin wrapper around EC2. At least I get that impression looking at the price points - the smallest 32bit instance is just shy of 1k/year. Am I going to get more performance out of three Dynos at Heroku for about the same cost? Maybe maybe not. But where am I going to put my staging test/servers? On a 20/month VPS? On an instance @AppCloud that I spin up and down? No, I'll tell you where, I'm going to stick it on a Dyno or two at Heroku and not worry about it. And then when I need to scale or the product is ready for production where is it going to be hosted. That's right - the same place it's been validated and tested on. By the way, Engine Yard is not the only place that has this barrier to entry problem. Most of the cloud providers do. Joyent.com, Media Temple, Rackspace cloud all have Barriers whether it's poor documentation, higher than normal base costs and bandwidth fees or just inconvenience like having to wait on a call from someone in Texas in order to be allowed to create instances. If the other players want to compete with Heroku on the service and ease of use side or Amazon on flexibility and scale then they are going to have to do much, much, much better.
- wuputah 16y ago
  Agreed; after using their product for many months, I learned how it is little better than running your own instances. There are some cool things it does, but you end up doing plenty of sysadmin work yourself, writing Chef recipes for anything not supported by their (aging) platform, and then you lose the benefit of support as well. Did I mention that support costs start at $275 (12/5) or $475 (24/7) a month?[1] Without it, you can't open a ticket. It's also increasingly annoying to see shots taken at Heroku in their blog posts and on Twitter. It's unprofessional. Compete on features and services, please. [1]: http://www.engineyard.com/products/appcloud/support http://www.engineyard.com/products/appcloud/support
  - tmornini_ey 16y ago

60 points by dirtyhand 16y ago

This is huge for Rails consulting companies. Hopefully we can now convince one of our clients to switch over to EY AppCloud from Bluehost.

tmornini_ey 16y ago
So glad to hear that, let me (@tmornini) know if I can help. We also have a partner program for Rails consulting companies, you should check that out too!
kwis 16y ago
I'm surprised by this reaction. It's less than three weeks of hosting. I can't imagine being meaningfully swayed by that.
- tsaleh 16y ago
  We considered giving more time on smaller instances, but in the end we felt our customers are more concerned with getting production sites up and running. So we're giving 500 hours of time on instances highly suited for public facing sites with sizable traffic.
- tmornini_ey 16y ago
  No, we don't expect many will make a decision based upon 500 free hours, but we do expect many will give us a try, and make their decision based upon the experience they have during their 500 hour trial. :-)
  - kwis 16y ago
    Sure. I think it's a potentially effective promotion for exactly the reason you describe. (free test, and if they're not actively dissatisfied, switching costs will likely cause them to stick with you.) That's an idea worth testing. I just can't understand the parent post indicating that it's 'huge for rails consulting companies'. After all, rails consulting companies are sending out five digit monthly invoices. A $150 discount on the first month of hosting is a rounding error in that context.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - drnicwilliams 16y ago
      Ha, that's possibly true as a percentage of total fees. Hopefully the total fees paid to Engine Yard will always be a rounding error in the context of consulting fees! :) We're investigating other benefits for our Development Partners too. Any thoughts?
- tmornini_ey 16y ago
  Ah, I see! We knew that consulting shops would like this because it allows them to get an account set up without a credit card, and ask the client to complete the signup process, including handing over their credit card. :-)
- dirtyhand 16y ago
  Clients with limited budgets are easily sticker shocked by hosting costs. Having the option to bundle 20 days of free production hosting is a great addition to any development service. EY AppCloud is a great service and we hate to see clients opt out without giving it a try.

andymoe 16y ago

This hit a nerve for me. I keep going back and looking at Engine Yard Hoping there will be something there for me but I just can't justify moving from Heroku for the ruby stuff. They have so many knobs to turn and a nice low entry point for very small apps that can be cranked up easily. It's this low barrier to entry that Engine Yard is missing and free for three weeks is not a substitute for this. AppCloud seems to be (and I hate to use this word) "just" a thin wrapper around EC2. At least I get that impression looking at the price points - the smallest 32bit instance is just shy of 1k/year. Am I going to get more performance out of three Dynos at Heroku for about the same cost? Maybe maybe not. But where am I going to put my staging test/servers? On a 20/month VPS? On an instance @AppCloud that I spin up and down? No, I'll tell you where, I'm going to stick it on a Dyno or two at Heroku and not worry about it. And then when I need to scale or the product is ready for production where is it going to be hosted. That's right - the same place it's been validated and tested on. By the way, Engine Yard is not the only place that has this barrier to entry problem. Most of the cloud providers do. Joyent.com, Media Temple, Rackspace cloud all have Barriers whether it's poor documentation, higher than normal base costs and bandwidth fees or just inconvenience like having to wait on a call from someone in Texas in order to be allowed to create instances. If the other players want to compete with Heroku on the service and ease of use side or Amazon on flexibility and scale then they are going to have to do much, much, much better.

wuputah 16y ago
Agreed; after using their product for many months, I learned how it is little better than running your own instances. There are some cool things it does, but you end up doing plenty of sysadmin work yourself, writing Chef recipes for anything not supported by their (aging) platform, and then you lose the benefit of support as well. Did I mention that support costs start at $275 (12/5) or $475 (24/7) a month?[1] Without it, you can't open a ticket. It's also increasingly annoying to see shots taken at Heroku in their blog posts and on Twitter. It's unprofessional. Compete on features and services, please. [1]: http://www.engineyard.com/products/appcloud/support http://www.engineyard.com/products/appcloud/support
- tmornini_ey 16y ago