It all depends on the scale of not only the app, but the organization too. We have enough people to click buttons in RDS. We don't have enough to mess around wi

It all depends on the scale of not only the app, but the organization too. We have enough people to click buttons in RDS. We don't have enough to mess around with replication, backups, etc. The cost isn't just for the hardware, but the services that we'd otherwise have to hire someone to do. I used to work at a place that would borrow hardware from one client in order to handle the load on another. It was for seasonal stuff, a few days a year when we knew someone would melt down if they didn't have double or triple the capacity, but they didn't need it the rest of the year. Now I deal in auto scale groups and don't care how many servers we use or need as long as it isn't wasteful. "Hardware" that isn't ours is so easy to swap out, try a different size or scale that is hate to go back to metal.