4 ms·

VM for a mobile app?

tmikaeld 6y ago
Absolutely, highly scalable VMs are available for less than 2€/mo from providers like Hetzner and OVH (less at scale), with an included "global" redundant network. Does it make sense if your business idea is having thousands of customers on a single VM by using containers? No, of course not! But it does make sense if each customer is worth more than 2€ per month.
- XCSme 6y ago
  I think this is what's wrong with today's SaaS and web environment. People thing that by going with AWS, creating a complicated auto-scaling infrastructure that supports billions of user is the way to go and the most cost-effective way, but while doing so many forget that using the simpler solution that costs a bit more can actually save time and money. What's the point of trying to save $1/month per user if you have no users yet and achieving this cost reduction takes one or two more years of development time.
  - jokethrowaway 6y ago
    AWS is rarely cheaper than competitors. It just offers more for more.
    - XCSme 6y ago
      I thought one of the main selling points was the on-demand computing power and per second billing. So instead of having a $5/mo VPS you only pay 30c or whatever your usage was for that month. I do know that billing can get confusing and in some unfortunate cases people ended up paying 10x or 100x more than they expected. Maybe my example was bad, but my point was that sometimes it's ok to not go on the most-efficient route and that for an MVP "good enough" is actually the best way to go.
      - tmikaeld 6y ago
        The main reason people choose AWS is orchestration ability and scaling, the cost is usually hidden in "free" tiers until you start to scale and it becomes visible. Bandwidth being one of the largest issues... The second is cost complexity.. AWS pricing is also so complex that Amazon provides cost calculators to get an estimate, however, since most services intertwine, it's so easy to miss obvious cost points that business provide cost-savings service for AWS specifically. The costs have become so complex, that AWS customers even use AWS own ML service to log and do cost analysis. https://www.concurrencylabs.com/blog/aws-quicksight-cost-optimization/ https://www.concurrencylabs.com/blog/aws-quicksight-cost-opt...
      - jokethrowaway 6y ago
        I totally agree with your premise, I just wanted to point out that AWS is rarely as cost effective as a VPS. If you're spending 30c in lambda, you're probably cheaper than a 5$/mo VPS but I'd argue you'd be covered by heroku (or similar) free tier. In theory, AWS gives you more tool so you don't have to build / manage software yourself. In practice, the markup on the tools is significant and you usually pay a premium for devops who know AWS over those who don't. If you're saving a lot of development time by using AWS tools, it could be worth it, but I haven't seen many companies where that is true. Maybe it makes more sense in Silicon Valley where tech people are much more expensive.
  - tmikaeld 6y ago
    The team i worked with hosted simple solutions on VMs at first. But after a few years, the client requirements and features grew until our biggest problem became maintenance and upgrades. The sysop costs became higher than our earnings, so we weighted our options of re-building or partner with a larger API-first solution. Eventually we choose to partner up and in the end, we cut costs to a fraction, while still keeping the customer base and increasing performance. Which is another point I see constantly, founders desperately want to keep control by not outsourcing when it _should_ be, and by doing that, the costs continue to increase and the already over-worked team can no longer push features, competition gain even more ground, margins fall even more and eventually layoffs and inevitable shut-down.
    - XCSme 6y ago
      Good points. It should still be mentioned that moving away from VMs to API-first solution or outsourcing maintenance only happened after the company grew and was successful, not before the MVP was ready.
- grumple 6y ago
  How does a cloud VM for each user solve the problem of offline, local storage, or make anything simpler?

Absolutely, highly scalable VMs are available for less than 2€/mo from providers like Hetzner and OVH (less at scale), with an included "global" redundant network. Does it make sense if your business idea is having thousands of customers on a single VM by using containers? No, of course not! But it does make sense if each customer is worth more than 2€ per month.

XCSme 6y ago
I think this is what's wrong with today's SaaS and web environment. People thing that by going with AWS, creating a complicated auto-scaling infrastructure that supports billions of user is the way to go and the most cost-effective way, but while doing so many forget that using the simpler solution that costs a bit more can actually save time and money. What's the point of trying to save $1/month per user if you have no users yet and achieving this cost reduction takes one or two more years of development time.
- jokethrowaway 6y ago
  AWS is rarely cheaper than competitors. It just offers more for more.
  - XCSme 6y ago
    I thought one of the main selling points was the on-demand computing power and per second billing. So instead of having a $5/mo VPS you only pay 30c or whatever your usage was for that month. I do know that billing can get confusing and in some unfortunate cases people ended up paying 10x or 100x more than they expected. Maybe my example was bad, but my point was that sometimes it's ok to not go on the most-efficient route and that for an MVP "good enough" is actually the best way to go.
    - tmikaeld 6y ago
      The main reason people choose AWS is orchestration ability and scaling, the cost is usually hidden in "free" tiers until you start to scale and it becomes visible. Bandwidth being one of the largest issues... The second is cost complexity.. AWS pricing is also so complex that Amazon provides cost calculators to get an estimate, however, since most services intertwine, it's so easy to miss obvious cost points that business provide cost-savings service for AWS specifically. The costs have become so complex, that AWS customers even use AWS own ML service to log and do cost analysis. https://www.concurrencylabs.com/blog/aws-quicksight-cost-optimization/ https://www.concurrencylabs.com/blog/aws-quicksight-cost-opt...
    - jokethrowaway 6y ago
      I totally agree with your premise, I just wanted to point out that AWS is rarely as cost effective as a VPS. If you're spending 30c in lambda, you're probably cheaper than a 5$/mo VPS but I'd argue you'd be covered by heroku (or similar) free tier. In theory, AWS gives you more tool so you don't have to build / manage software yourself. In practice, the markup on the tools is significant and you usually pay a premium for devops who know AWS over those who don't. If you're saving a lot of development time by using AWS tools, it could be worth it, but I haven't seen many companies where that is true. Maybe it makes more sense in Silicon Valley where tech people are much more expensive.
- tmikaeld 6y ago
  The team i worked with hosted simple solutions on VMs at first. But after a few years, the client requirements and features grew until our biggest problem became maintenance and upgrades. The sysop costs became higher than our earnings, so we weighted our options of re-building or partner with a larger API-first solution. Eventually we choose to partner up and in the end, we cut costs to a fraction, while still keeping the customer base and increasing performance. Which is another point I see constantly, founders desperately want to keep control by not outsourcing when it _should_ be, and by doing that, the costs continue to increase and the already over-worked team can no longer push features, competition gain even more ground, margins fall even more and eventually layoffs and inevitable shut-down.
  - XCSme 6y ago
    Good points. It should still be mentioned that moving away from VMs to API-first solution or outsourcing maintenance only happened after the company grew and was successful, not before the MVP was ready.
grumple 6y ago
How does a cloud VM for each user solve the problem of offline, local storage, or make anything simpler?