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I'm a Googler, opinions are my own. The terms of use for GCP does say any product that is shut down will give at least a one-year notice before it's shut down[

by kyrra 6y ago

I'm a Googler, opinions are my own. The terms of use for GCP does say any product that is shut down will give at least a one-year notice before it's shut down[1]. For any given product within GCP that has been shut down the lead time has been greater than a year as far as I'm aware. The fact that Google is calling out GCP separately on its earning calls is actually somewhat of a commitment to trying to grow that business. Very few products within Google are called out separately, so that was a fairly big change. [1] https://cloud.google.com/terms/ https://cloud.google.com/terms/ > (d) Discontinuation of Services. Google will notify Customer at least 12 months before discontinuing any Service (or associated material functionality) unless Google replaces such discontinued Service or functionality with a materially similar Service or functionality.

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
I don't think a year is long enough though - especially for something that's unique and foundational. A complex product built using BigTable, for example, may need more than a year to migrate to something else.
- robbintt 6y ago
  This was our conclusion with an existing gcp monolithic service.
joshspankit 6y ago
Runway is not enough enough of a pull when we need to heavily invest in the infrastructure initially as well as over time as we solve quirks.
floatingatoll 6y ago
How does this compare to the terms and the actions of Amazon towards AWS?
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  People simply know that AWS isn't going anywhere. It's the Microsoft Windows of the cloud world. Google has a long history of dropping stuff relatively quickly.
  - joezydeco 6y ago
    Amazon runs on AWS, Google does not run on GCP. Or am I missing something?
    - redis_mlc 6y ago
      > Amazon runs on AWS That's not a given. At least in the early AWS days, internal sites had special configurations. Source: worked there.
      - illumin8 6y ago
        In the early days, they had a ton of special configurations, like w.amazon.com - the internal wiki, which was probably running in a datacenter somewhere. But in recent years, they run entirely on AWS. They even have solutions architects to help them build things in a resilient way. They also spent years ripping out Oracle and replacing it with RDS MySQL, PostgreSQL and Aurora. It is true that Amazon runs on AWS. Source: worked there.
        DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
        You guys also have “vending machines” for things like Ethernet cables in the office with price tags displayed. They’re free, but it’s to remind you not to waste Bezos’ money on frivolous things. And you pay market-rate for microwave reheated salmon in the cafeteria. ...then they go and buy more of some the most expensive office space in the world per-sqft. Source: I interviewed there 3 times and every time left me with a dystopic impression of the company. To add insult to injury their recruiter only ballparked me only slightly above half of my then-TC.
        6y ago
Twirrim 6y ago
A year is _crazy short_ for enterprise business, which is where most of cloud growth is right now. It's worse if that component is core to the business in any way. Think about components you rely on for your service. How long would it take you to stand up or migrate to an alternative. Consider that you've also got all your other business to do too. You can't spent a year just spinning your wheels from a business perspective, while you're migrating stuff between services because your upstream provider decided to stop building something. You've still got to keep growing. If you're lucky, you've got staffing for meeting your business growth needs, but odds are that's barely true. On top of having to migrate, what are your replacement's performance characteristics? Are you replacing it with your own solution instead, and if so how do you operate it, what happens under load, how do you ensure durability? etc. etc. lots and lots of questions and you've got scant 12 months to figure out what you're doing and how to get off it _on top of your existing business needs_. This criticism has been brought up so many times, and yet routinely we still see GCP saying "but we promise to give you a whole year's notice!" as if that's a good thing. (disclaimer: I work for another cloud provider)
- kyrra 6y ago
  Does any cloud provider provide a blanket "all released features will be supported for X years" to all users without a contract (as part of the terms)? I have never looked into other cloud providers, so I honestly don't know. Also, I'm guessing larger companies could push for certain longer deprecation policies as part of their contracts on certain features. I have no insights here, just assuming from what other people on this thread are saying. (Googler, opinions are my own)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - whoisjuan 6y ago
    Well that’s hardly the problem honestly. AWS is surprisingly good at not dropping services or creating long-term deprecation plans. They don’t have to enter into a contract to guarantee the longevity of their services. It’s definitely what makes AWS so trustworthy. Amazon in general is pretty good at supporting both business and consumer services in the long run, even when some of those services are clearly money losing units. That’s because the company is basically designed like a synergistic portfolio where even money-losing businesses have a purpose in the big picture. And that’s where Google fails. It’s very well known how ruthless Google can be at killing business that don’t produce tangible results. The Alphabet re-org clearly showcases that they are playing a game of optimizing the allocation of their assets. That mentality bleeds down. Unfortunately, you can’t run a Cloud Business like that. To Google’s merit, it seems that they are not running their cloud unit with that mentality (I don’t think I have heard about GCP services that shut down). But it’s clear there’s a generalized feeling in the industry that Google can at any point become impatient with GCP, leaving many stranded. For Google to be a distant third in the Cloud game must be pretty hard. This is something that plays to their strengths and yet they are hardly closing the gap. The big difference is that the companies that are winning (Amazon and Microsoft) are willing to lose in some areas to win in others. They excel at that. Google on the other hand seems to have a hard time with that shit...

by kyrra 6y ago

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago

I don't think a year is long enough though - especially for something that's unique and foundational. A complex product built using BigTable, for example, may need more than a year to migrate to something else.

robbintt 6y ago
This was our conclusion with an existing gcp monolithic service.

joshspankit 6y ago

Runway is not enough enough of a pull when we need to heavily invest in the infrastructure initially as well as over time as we solve quirks.

floatingatoll 6y ago

How does this compare to the terms and the actions of Amazon towards AWS?

stjohnswarts 6y ago
People simply know that AWS isn't going anywhere. It's the Microsoft Windows of the cloud world. Google has a long history of dropping stuff relatively quickly.
- joezydeco 6y ago
  Amazon runs on AWS, Google does not run on GCP. Or am I missing something?
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    > Amazon runs on AWS That's not a given. At least in the early AWS days, internal sites had special configurations. Source: worked there.
    - illumin8 6y ago
      In the early days, they had a ton of special configurations, like w.amazon.com - the internal wiki, which was probably running in a datacenter somewhere. But in recent years, they run entirely on AWS. They even have solutions architects to help them build things in a resilient way. They also spent years ripping out Oracle and replacing it with RDS MySQL, PostgreSQL and Aurora. It is true that Amazon runs on AWS. Source: worked there.
      - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
        You guys also have “vending machines” for things like Ethernet cables in the office with price tags displayed. They’re free, but it’s to remind you not to waste Bezos’ money on frivolous things. And you pay market-rate for microwave reheated salmon in the cafeteria. ...then they go and buy more of some the most expensive office space in the world per-sqft. Source: I interviewed there 3 times and every time left me with a dystopic impression of the company. To add insult to injury their recruiter only ballparked me only slightly above half of my then-TC.
        6y ago

Twirrim 6y ago

A year is _crazy short_ for enterprise business, which is where most of cloud growth is right now. It's worse if that component is core to the business in any way. Think about components you rely on for your service. How long would it take you to stand up or migrate to an alternative. Consider that you've also got all your other business to do too. You can't spent a year just spinning your wheels from a business perspective, while you're migrating stuff between services because your upstream provider decided to stop building something. You've still got to keep growing. If you're lucky, you've got staffing for meeting your business growth needs, but odds are that's barely true. On top of having to migrate, what are your replacement's performance characteristics? Are you replacing it with your own solution instead, and if so how do you operate it, what happens under load, how do you ensure durability? etc. etc. lots and lots of questions and you've got scant 12 months to figure out what you're doing and how to get off it _on top of your existing business needs_. This criticism has been brought up so many times, and yet routinely we still see GCP saying "but we promise to give you a whole year's notice!" as if that's a good thing. (disclaimer: I work for another cloud provider)

kyrra 6y ago
Does any cloud provider provide a blanket "all released features will be supported for X years" to all users without a contract (as part of the terms)? I have never looked into other cloud providers, so I honestly don't know. Also, I'm guessing larger companies could push for certain longer deprecation policies as part of their contracts on certain features. I have no insights here, just assuming from what other people on this thread are saying. (Googler, opinions are my own)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- whoisjuan 6y ago
  Well that’s hardly the problem honestly. AWS is surprisingly good at not dropping services or creating long-term deprecation plans. They don’t have to enter into a contract to guarantee the longevity of their services. It’s definitely what makes AWS so trustworthy. Amazon in general is pretty good at supporting both business and consumer services in the long run, even when some of those services are clearly money losing units. That’s because the company is basically designed like a synergistic portfolio where even money-losing businesses have a purpose in the big picture. And that’s where Google fails. It’s very well known how ruthless Google can be at killing business that don’t produce tangible results. The Alphabet re-org clearly showcases that they are playing a game of optimizing the allocation of their assets. That mentality bleeds down. Unfortunately, you can’t run a Cloud Business like that. To Google’s merit, it seems that they are not running their cloud unit with that mentality (I don’t think I have heard about GCP services that shut down). But it’s clear there’s a generalized feeling in the industry that Google can at any point become impatient with GCP, leaving many stranded. For Google to be a distant third in the Cloud game must be pretty hard. This is something that plays to their strengths and yet they are hardly closing the gap. The big difference is that the companies that are winning (Amazon and Microsoft) are willing to lose in some areas to win in others. They excel at that. Google on the other hand seems to have a hard time with that shit...