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This isn't surprising at all. This industry is incredibly fad driven. Cloud became the fad, and the buzz was that cloud saves money, so everyone goes cloud, and

by api 5y ago

This isn't surprising at all. This industry is incredibly fad driven. Cloud became the fad, and the buzz was that cloud saves money, so everyone goes cloud, and then cloud eventually costs more than the original stuff did. The same is happening with SaaS. SaaS eliminates the need for in-house IT! Except it doesn't. It just means you now have a bunch of recurring SaaS costs that you are locked into forever because they have your data and you still need IT people to babysit your massive cloud/SaaS sprawl. Not following fads and buzz is a huge competitive advantage in this industry. Founders and chief engineers / CTOs / CIOs take note. Just make sure you can explain why you are not using (insert latest buzzword here). The bottom line is that you should analyze the situation using your work load, your numbers, your culture, etc., and decide what works the best. Sometimes that's managed cloud. Sometimes it's unmanaged cloud. Sometimes it's bare metal. Sometimes it's on-prem. Your mileage will vary.

bsder 5y ago
> Founders and chief engineers / CTOs / CIOs take note. Just make sure you can explain why you are not using (insert latest buzzword here). 1) It takes amazing intestinal fortitude to fight back against the fad tide. And, when things go wrong, your decisions get the blame even if they aren't at fault. 2) As the article points out, cloud is FINE for startups and small companies. If my startup company reaches gigabucks in revenue and I now have to worry about $75 million in cloud spend, I've done my job. And then some. 3) Cloud is often about blame and liability transfer. I don't want the company website getting hacked to be my problem--I want it to be somebody else's problem. I'm willing to pay for that.
dageshi 5y ago
Cloud is just a big toolbox of premade tools and resources that you can play with to your hearts content with much of the friction taken out, both technical and bureaucratic. You pay a higher price for what you use than if you maintain those tools yourself... but you don't have to maintain those tools yourself. It's hardly a buzzword, it's almost defacto standard nowadays.
- calvinmorrison 5y ago
  This. On prem required me to do so much ITIL work to get even a switch replaced, now I have a budget on azure I can do whatever the fuck I want
  - api 5y ago
    I think this is an important point. In many cases the benefit of cloud and SaaS is working around your IT department. It's a technical way of going around human management problems.
  - betaby 5y ago
    and then this happen https://twitter.com/pragmaticandy/status/1168916144121634818?lang=en https://twitter.com/pragmaticandy/status/1168916144121634818...
    - dageshi 5y ago
      sure, can happen to anyone. Still easier to shunt massive amounts of data between aws regions via amazons pipes than it is to do it yourself.
void_mint 5y ago
I feel like this assessment lacks a lot of nuance. I wouldn't really call "cloud" a "fad" as much as an overused option. > Cloud became the fad, and the buzz was that cloud saves money, so everyone goes cloud Cloud services _do_ save money for businesses of the appropriate size (meaning, those that can't or shouldn't be focusing on physical servers and networked hardware). > The same is happening with SaaS. SaaS eliminates the need for in-house IT! Again, SaaS _does_ eliminate the need for in-house IT _for certain classes of businesses_. > It just means you now have a bunch of recurring SaaS costs that you are locked into forever because they have your data and you still need IT people to babysit your massive cloud/SaaS sprawl. The cost of employing someone to babysit a SaaS product is much lower than the cost to employ someone to build and maintain an equivalent in-house SaaS product. If you're fine with vendor lock you're saving money. > Not following fads and buzz is a huge competitive advantage in this industry. Ignoring all nuance and claiming things that are popular are "just fads" is, to me, so much of a competitive disadvantage that it almost certainly outweights any perceived gain.

by api 5y ago

bsder 5y ago

> Founders and chief engineers / CTOs / CIOs take note. Just make sure you can explain why you are not using (insert latest buzzword here). 1) It takes amazing intestinal fortitude to fight back against the fad tide. And, when things go wrong, your decisions get the blame even if they aren't at fault. 2) As the article points out, cloud is FINE for startups and small companies. If my startup company reaches gigabucks in revenue and I now have to worry about $75 million in cloud spend, I've done my job. And then some. 3) Cloud is often about blame and liability transfer. I don't want the company website getting hacked to be my problem--I want it to be somebody else's problem. I'm willing to pay for that.

dageshi 5y ago

Cloud is just a big toolbox of premade tools and resources that you can play with to your hearts content with much of the friction taken out, both technical and bureaucratic. You pay a higher price for what you use than if you maintain those tools yourself... but you don't have to maintain those tools yourself. It's hardly a buzzword, it's almost defacto standard nowadays.

calvinmorrison 5y ago
This. On prem required me to do so much ITIL work to get even a switch replaced, now I have a budget on azure I can do whatever the fuck I want
- api 5y ago
  I think this is an important point. In many cases the benefit of cloud and SaaS is working around your IT department. It's a technical way of going around human management problems.
- betaby 5y ago
  and then this happen https://twitter.com/pragmaticandy/status/1168916144121634818?lang=en https://twitter.com/pragmaticandy/status/1168916144121634818...
  - dageshi 5y ago
    sure, can happen to anyone. Still easier to shunt massive amounts of data between aws regions via amazons pipes than it is to do it yourself.

void_mint 5y ago

I feel like this assessment lacks a lot of nuance. I wouldn't really call "cloud" a "fad" as much as an overused option. > Cloud became the fad, and the buzz was that cloud saves money, so everyone goes cloud Cloud services _do_ save money for businesses of the appropriate size (meaning, those that can't or shouldn't be focusing on physical servers and networked hardware). > The same is happening with SaaS. SaaS eliminates the need for in-house IT! Again, SaaS _does_ eliminate the need for in-house IT _for certain classes of businesses_. > It just means you now have a bunch of recurring SaaS costs that you are locked into forever because they have your data and you still need IT people to babysit your massive cloud/SaaS sprawl. The cost of employing someone to babysit a SaaS product is much lower than the cost to employ someone to build and maintain an equivalent in-house SaaS product. If you're fine with vendor lock you're saving money. > Not following fads and buzz is a huge competitive advantage in this industry. Ignoring all nuance and claiming things that are popular are "just fads" is, to me, so much of a competitive disadvantage that it almost certainly outweights any perceived gain.