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Hear hear. I've generally found that hardware has about a 10-month payback aginst AWS, though I've tried to estimate my own (sysadmin) time cost to build out t

by mmt 16y ago

Hear hear. I've generally found that hardware has about a 10-month payback aginst AWS, though I've tried to estimate my own (sysadmin) time cost to build out the datacenter, as well as just cash cost. I'm glad to see someone else is coming to similar conclusions. Anecdotally, I've found that the big cost is up front, which is why it's daunting many companies to make the change. What I find less comprehensible is the desire to "move to the cloud" from an existing full-stack infrastructure, as if replacing aging server hardware costs more than paying Amazon.

kwis 16y ago
Your 10 month payback calc falls right in line with my figures of 9-12 months, depending largely on the number of man-hours required to get going. If you've never vetted a DC or picked hardware before, twelve. If you know of three good DCs, have negotiated contracts before, know that you want a pile of HP DL360s, and know where to buy them, nine.
spade 16y ago
You might be able to lease the hardware to reduce the large initial cash outflow.
- mmt 16y ago
  That's a big "might," and it adds significantly to the cost. If I'm buying all brand-name Dell or HP, I expect it would be relatively easy to get a low interest rate without much hassle. However, if I'm also buying different brands of network hardware and, say, rolling my own high-performance storage[1], it's another matter. Regardless, even leasing can cause "sticker shock," and, perhaps more importantly, still requires all the up-front time cost. [1] Such as SuperMicro enclosures with commodity disks, rather than all brand-name Dell, which can easily double or triple the price, even with a steep discount.
VladRussian 16y ago
>I've generally found that hardware has about a 10-month payback aginst AWS no wonder here. The AWS has their own business people who calculated how much they would need to charge to get profit from the hardware investment loosing its value right down to the neighborhood of $0 in 2-3years.

by mmt 16y ago

kwis 16y ago

Your 10 month payback calc falls right in line with my figures of 9-12 months, depending largely on the number of man-hours required to get going. If you've never vetted a DC or picked hardware before, twelve. If you know of three good DCs, have negotiated contracts before, know that you want a pile of HP DL360s, and know where to buy them, nine.

spade 16y ago

You might be able to lease the hardware to reduce the large initial cash outflow.

mmt 16y ago
That's a big "might," and it adds significantly to the cost. If I'm buying all brand-name Dell or HP, I expect it would be relatively easy to get a low interest rate without much hassle. However, if I'm also buying different brands of network hardware and, say, rolling my own high-performance storage[1], it's another matter. Regardless, even leasing can cause "sticker shock," and, perhaps more importantly, still requires all the up-front time cost. [1] Such as SuperMicro enclosures with commodity disks, rather than all brand-name Dell, which can easily double or triple the price, even with a steep discount.

VladRussian 16y ago

>I've generally found that hardware has about a 10-month payback aginst AWS no wonder here. The AWS has their own business people who calculated how much they would need to charge to get profit from the hardware investment loosing its value right down to the neighborhood of $0 in 2-3years.