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I can always rely on HN for finding out why AWS is broken... Is it time to switch to GCP?

by sebmellen 6y ago

bfieidhbrjr 6y ago
Azure. The web panel is a bazillion times better and they know AD... pretty well.
- dijit 6y ago
  I think this is sarcasm. But genuinely AzureAD is really good. Authentication and Authorization systems are difficult, AD has always been begrudgingly the most well rounded (yes, it has warts) but AzureAD really is nice. I especially like that my local admin can delegate Enterprise Apps to me so I can create SAML/OAUTH2 SSO links between stuff we use without needing the keys to the kingdom. I recently set up Enterprise Federation with GCP and it took less than a day. (compared with many months in my last company which used on-prem AD)
  - sargun 6y ago
    Does azure AD actually do active directory yet (LDAP and all)? Or is it still just a name?
    - dijit 6y ago
      All of our windows desktop machines use it as their login controller, but I’m not 100% sure of the implementation- it is likely there needs to be a local login server because from what I remember of Windows it’s using WINS to find a logon server, and that I think must be local.
      - easton 6y ago
        It’s actually a new-ish “credential provider” system for logging into Windows. It’s not just Azure AD either, Gsuite can be used for logging into and managing Windows now. There is no longer a need for a local domain controller either. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/secauthn/credential-providers-in-windows https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/secauthn/cred...
      - sk5t 6y ago
        Oof, WINS is some super antique stuff. The (traditional) process to find and select a domain controller is known as "DC Locator"--or else search for DsGetDc--and is essentially DNS-based. Caveat, I've been out of the Windows/AD game for 7+ years!
    - MrMorden 6y ago
      For systems expecting LDAP and Kerberos you can use either AAD Domain Services (a read-only DCaaS) or an on-premises AD controller.
    - animationwill 6y ago
      It’s definitely not AD and isn’t compatible with many things that you’d expect. They just repurposed the name
snazz 6y ago
How often the "____ is down" threads show up on HN is a function of the popularity and mission-critical-ness of the service. I wouldn't use it as a metric for choosing a cloud provider unless you control for popularity.
- gundmc 6y ago
  Even "controlling for popularity", frequency of HN posts is a terrible metric. If you're in the position to be making a significant investment in a cloud provider, you can probably afford the actual market research on reliability and uptime from reputable sources.
renewiltord 6y ago
No, sometimes you GCP failures posted here too. Your best bet is to move to Oracle Cloud. I have never seen an Oracle Cloud (not Oracle Data Cloud, which is the ad-tech product) outage posted here so I think they must have 100% uptime.
- MattSayar 6y ago
  Sarcasm detected! There's always going to be pros and cons to every provider, so the obvious choice is host everything on my home theater PC since I never turn that thing off.
  - dijit 6y ago
    Please don't consider this a counterpoint, but I have had single physically deployed servers that have significantly higher average uptime than my ec2 instances in AWS us-east-1 in the last 5 years. (significantly higher == 100% availability, it hasn't gone down... yet)
    - viraptor 6y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
      - theli0nheart 6y ago
        This doesn't apply. Having a server fail on you doesn't preclude you from posting to HN.
        viraptor 6y ago
        But it becomes uninteresting, which causes self-censorship. How many times did you hear about someone's server running for 12 minutes? How many times about server running for over a year? Nobody posts about the first one. (Unless it was a spectacular failure for some reason) Similar issue comes with estimating how reliable things are. People are more likely to respond "I had an issue with X too, here's my story" rather than "all good, nothing to report".
benlivengood 6y ago
Why not both?
dilyevsky 6y ago
If aws is too unstable for your needs you’re in for a major adventure on gcp
- sebmellen 6y ago
  I said this a bit facetiously after working with an organization that had massive troubles with GCP downtime early on, and a friend who works on their infra team and gives me reports of how often things go wrong. I guess it didn't translate ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

I can always rely on HN for finding out why AWS is broken... Is it time to switch to GCP?

bfieidhbrjr 6y ago

Azure. The web panel is a bazillion times better and they know AD... pretty well.

dijit 6y ago
I think this is sarcasm. But genuinely AzureAD is really good. Authentication and Authorization systems are difficult, AD has always been begrudgingly the most well rounded (yes, it has warts) but AzureAD really is nice. I especially like that my local admin can delegate Enterprise Apps to me so I can create SAML/OAUTH2 SSO links between stuff we use without needing the keys to the kingdom. I recently set up Enterprise Federation with GCP and it took less than a day. (compared with many months in my last company which used on-prem AD)
- sargun 6y ago
  Does azure AD actually do active directory yet (LDAP and all)? Or is it still just a name?
  - dijit 6y ago
    All of our windows desktop machines use it as their login controller, but I’m not 100% sure of the implementation- it is likely there needs to be a local login server because from what I remember of Windows it’s using WINS to find a logon server, and that I think must be local.
    - easton 6y ago
      It’s actually a new-ish “credential provider” system for logging into Windows. It’s not just Azure AD either, Gsuite can be used for logging into and managing Windows now. There is no longer a need for a local domain controller either. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/secauthn/credential-providers-in-windows https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/secauthn/cred...
    - sk5t 6y ago
      Oof, WINS is some super antique stuff. The (traditional) process to find and select a domain controller is known as "DC Locator"--or else search for DsGetDc--and is essentially DNS-based. Caveat, I've been out of the Windows/AD game for 7+ years!
  - MrMorden 6y ago
    For systems expecting LDAP and Kerberos you can use either AAD Domain Services (a read-only DCaaS) or an on-premises AD controller.
  - animationwill 6y ago
    It’s definitely not AD and isn’t compatible with many things that you’d expect. They just repurposed the name

snazz 6y ago

How often the "____ is down" threads show up on HN is a function of the popularity and mission-critical-ness of the service. I wouldn't use it as a metric for choosing a cloud provider unless you control for popularity.

gundmc 6y ago
Even "controlling for popularity", frequency of HN posts is a terrible metric. If you're in the position to be making a significant investment in a cloud provider, you can probably afford the actual market research on reliability and uptime from reputable sources.

renewiltord 6y ago

No, sometimes you GCP failures posted here too. Your best bet is to move to Oracle Cloud. I have never seen an Oracle Cloud (not Oracle Data Cloud, which is the ad-tech product) outage posted here so I think they must have 100% uptime.

MattSayar 6y ago
Sarcasm detected! There's always going to be pros and cons to every provider, so the obvious choice is host everything on my home theater PC since I never turn that thing off.
- dijit 6y ago
  Please don't consider this a counterpoint, but I have had single physically deployed servers that have significantly higher average uptime than my ec2 instances in AWS us-east-1 in the last 5 years. (significantly higher == 100% availability, it hasn't gone down... yet)
  - viraptor 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
    - theli0nheart 6y ago
      This doesn't apply. Having a server fail on you doesn't preclude you from posting to HN.
      - viraptor 6y ago
        But it becomes uninteresting, which causes self-censorship. How many times did you hear about someone's server running for 12 minutes? How many times about server running for over a year? Nobody posts about the first one. (Unless it was a spectacular failure for some reason) Similar issue comes with estimating how reliable things are. People are more likely to respond "I had an issue with X too, here's my story" rather than "all good, nothing to report".

benlivengood 6y ago

Why not both?

dilyevsky 6y ago

If aws is too unstable for your needs you’re in for a major adventure on gcp

sebmellen 6y ago
I said this a bit facetiously after working with an organization that had massive troubles with GCP downtime early on, and a friend who works on their infra team and gives me reports of how often things go wrong. I guess it didn't translate ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.