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Wait - this article appears to compare hardware costs of self-hosting against the total cost of using AWS. It's missing the most expensive component (labour) w

by munk-a 6y ago

Wait - this article appears to compare hardware costs of self-hosting against the total cost of using AWS. It's missing the most expensive component (labour) which just so happens to be extremely expensive to scale.

shiftpgdn 6y ago
AWS doesn't manage itself. You still need someone to control your AWS instances.
- yowlingcat 6y ago
  The whole point of using the AWS ecosystem is generally to use as many of the managed services as possible so as to minimize the latter. If you're using it to be multi-cloud portable, then yes, your point stands -- but then it brings into question whether you're exploiting its capabilities to their full potential.
- threatofrain 6y ago
  AWS just needs to shave off a few engineers, and at least it has shaved off the need for hardware competency.
- TomBombadildoze 6y ago
  Of course. However, you don't need someone to provision and monitor power, connectivity, datacenter security, and all the responsibilities AWS absolutely prices in for you. You also substantially reduce your effort and cost toward capacity planning and managing depreciation. You pay for consumption of _all the things_ required to operate compute infrastructure, plus their margin. There are certainly companies and problems for which colocating still makes more sense than the cloud but 9 out of 10 of these articles completely gloss over most of the costs. This article is one of them.
  - riku_iki 6y ago
    > you don't need someone to provision and monitor power, connectivity, datacenter security this is all included into colocation service?
- Rantenki 6y ago
  That's false equivalence. If your instance dies, you don't need to drive over to the colo, plug into a KVM, diagnose, and then pull and re-rack a new server. They do all that stuff, and it's worth the $$$. Also, you'll never get into a situation on AWS where you have a 3 day lead-time for a replacement GBIC, or NVMe drive, or seomthing, while your customers scream and bail out for a competitor that isn't down. Yes, you need to manage the infrastructure, but now it's a software configuration task instead of a physical maintenance one.
  - shiftpgdn 6y ago
    99.9% of colo facilities offer 24/7 remote hands. With the extreme cost savings of colo you could build in very significant redundancy, which is to say nothing of how infrequently modern server hardware fails.
  - anonfornoreason 6y ago
    I manage a rack of 12 servers, I have 110 hard drives in that rack. I've been managing this rack for a decade. I occasionally go to the datacenter to swap out a machine that is end of life, and I go every 3-6 months to swap out a failing drive or two. I'd estimate I spend < 20 hours a year at the datacenter. Everything else is almost 1:1 with what it would take to manage that using AWS. Obvious anecdata here, but it's not hard to run a redundant physical infrastructure that is low maintenance. Obviously bad luck is a thing, but with the correct planning and setup, physical infrastructure isn't that big of a deal for most web businesses.
    - munk-a 6y ago
      That's true - I was comparing managing a server rack in the office building against AWS - not comparing the relatively light hardware interaction needs when it comes to co-location.
      - addicted 6y ago
        I'm pretty sure the original article is talking about Colo.
02020202 6y ago
that it the most used argument these days...but it's bs. if i use bare metal, the purchase is equivalent of 2-3 months of cloud pricing and the rest 9-10 months can be spent on admin/tech...the catch is that if you start scaling this up(ie. you get 10 powerful servers), bare metal becomes cheaper by thousands of percent yoy. the compounded savings are through the roof. cloud just has better PR, that's all. cloud is great for development, tinkering and figuring out the scale. after that, bare metal is king. and with docker, ansible/salt, nomad... there is zero need for over-engineered and over-complicated and over-paid cloud crap that sales people force down your throat day after day.
Patrick-STH 6y ago
Labor is included and discussed both for my time as well as remote hands we pay for. It is very low at this point.
- ericpauley 6y ago
  Are you including having someone on call who can drive to the colo on a moment's notice? Unless your hardware is redundant and remotely swappable then you need to be ready for physical disaster response. Cloud providers abstract this away for a price.
  - kayson 6y ago
    That's what he means by "remote hands"
    - ericpauley 6y ago
      Not true. In the article remote hands refers to actual hours of maintenance performed ($640 for 4 hours). The cost of having a human on call to solve hardware problems is far higher than that.
      - welterde 6y ago
        There is no need to have anyone on call yourself to drive to the colo, since any decent colocation provider will have staff on-site 24/7 to perform any physical intervention required. Part of that you pay through your colocation bill and part you pay by the hour (depending on your contract/provider).
        ericpauley 6y ago
        They're doing their own routing. Will the colo tech fix their iptables if they mess them up and can't ssh?
        6y ago

by munk-a 6y ago

shiftpgdn 6y ago

AWS doesn't manage itself. You still need someone to control your AWS instances.

yowlingcat 6y ago
The whole point of using the AWS ecosystem is generally to use as many of the managed services as possible so as to minimize the latter. If you're using it to be multi-cloud portable, then yes, your point stands -- but then it brings into question whether you're exploiting its capabilities to their full potential.
threatofrain 6y ago
AWS just needs to shave off a few engineers, and at least it has shaved off the need for hardware competency.
TomBombadildoze 6y ago
Of course. However, you don't need someone to provision and monitor power, connectivity, datacenter security, and all the responsibilities AWS absolutely prices in for you. You also substantially reduce your effort and cost toward capacity planning and managing depreciation. You pay for consumption of _all the things_ required to operate compute infrastructure, plus their margin. There are certainly companies and problems for which colocating still makes more sense than the cloud but 9 out of 10 of these articles completely gloss over most of the costs. This article is one of them.
- riku_iki 6y ago
  > you don't need someone to provision and monitor power, connectivity, datacenter security this is all included into colocation service?
Rantenki 6y ago
That's false equivalence. If your instance dies, you don't need to drive over to the colo, plug into a KVM, diagnose, and then pull and re-rack a new server. They do all that stuff, and it's worth the $$$. Also, you'll never get into a situation on AWS where you have a 3 day lead-time for a replacement GBIC, or NVMe drive, or seomthing, while your customers scream and bail out for a competitor that isn't down. Yes, you need to manage the infrastructure, but now it's a software configuration task instead of a physical maintenance one.
- shiftpgdn 6y ago
  99.9% of colo facilities offer 24/7 remote hands. With the extreme cost savings of colo you could build in very significant redundancy, which is to say nothing of how infrequently modern server hardware fails.
- anonfornoreason 6y ago
  I manage a rack of 12 servers, I have 110 hard drives in that rack. I've been managing this rack for a decade. I occasionally go to the datacenter to swap out a machine that is end of life, and I go every 3-6 months to swap out a failing drive or two. I'd estimate I spend < 20 hours a year at the datacenter. Everything else is almost 1:1 with what it would take to manage that using AWS. Obvious anecdata here, but it's not hard to run a redundant physical infrastructure that is low maintenance. Obviously bad luck is a thing, but with the correct planning and setup, physical infrastructure isn't that big of a deal for most web businesses.
  - munk-a 6y ago
    That's true - I was comparing managing a server rack in the office building against AWS - not comparing the relatively light hardware interaction needs when it comes to co-location.
    - addicted 6y ago
      I'm pretty sure the original article is talking about Colo.

02020202 6y ago

that it the most used argument these days...but it's bs. if i use bare metal, the purchase is equivalent of 2-3 months of cloud pricing and the rest 9-10 months can be spent on admin/tech...the catch is that if you start scaling this up(ie. you get 10 powerful servers), bare metal becomes cheaper by thousands of percent yoy. the compounded savings are through the roof. cloud just has better PR, that's all. cloud is great for development, tinkering and figuring out the scale. after that, bare metal is king. and with docker, ansible/salt, nomad... there is zero need for over-engineered and over-complicated and over-paid cloud crap that sales people force down your throat day after day.

Patrick-STH 6y ago

Labor is included and discussed both for my time as well as remote hands we pay for. It is very low at this point.

ericpauley 6y ago
Are you including having someone on call who can drive to the colo on a moment's notice? Unless your hardware is redundant and remotely swappable then you need to be ready for physical disaster response. Cloud providers abstract this away for a price.
- kayson 6y ago
  That's what he means by "remote hands"
  - ericpauley 6y ago
    Not true. In the article remote hands refers to actual hours of maintenance performed ($640 for 4 hours). The cost of having a human on call to solve hardware problems is far higher than that.
    - welterde 6y ago
      There is no need to have anyone on call yourself to drive to the colo, since any decent colocation provider will have staff on-site 24/7 to perform any physical intervention required. Part of that you pay through your colocation bill and part you pay by the hour (depending on your contract/provider).
      - ericpauley 6y ago
        They're doing their own routing. Will the colo tech fix their iptables if they mess them up and can't ssh?
        6y ago