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It is not just that AWS, Azure etc. are eating your lunch, it is that the big enterprise customers are actively asking them to eat your lunch. Enterprise custom

It is not just that AWS, Azure etc. are eating your lunch, it is that the big enterprise customers are actively asking them to eat your lunch. Enterprise customers hate dealing with multiple vendors and they are always looking to reduce the number of vendors and legal agreements they have --- so they encourage the bigcos to deliver more services. I have been in meetings where I was asked to explain why we can't just use AWS Redis instead on using RedisLabs. Since I was a big fan of Redis , I had to painstakingly explain with cost projections of the implications of using AWS services for this solution.

villasv 5y ago
> Since I was a big fan of Redis , I had to painstakingly explain with cost projections of the implications of using AWS services for this solution. Your tone shows annoyance, but that's just doing your job properly. "I'm a fan" isn't really valid reasoning to choose RedisLabs.
- manishsharan 5y ago
  In a large enterprise, you have to be really passnionate about a new technology to get it approved through a series of excrutiatingly long review process while also working on your assigned projects. Nobody will mind or question your decision if you choose to use MS SQL or Oracle for KV stores because they are corporate standards. Presenting a new technology like Redis requires one to prepare documents for backup, failover , load balancing, support,iniciden management process anlong with a slew of security related reviews. Did I mention that all this while you are also responsible for staying on to of your JIRA tasks ? And even if you do get this technology certified, it means almost nothing on your bonus or yearly review. So yes .. one has to be a "fan" to push new techologies or vendors like RedisLabs in the enterprise. And yes, the process will make you a tad annoyed.
  - remus 5y ago
    That seems...sensible. When you start using a new product there's a lot of hidden costs associated with it (backup, failover, load balancing, support, incident management) so you need to take the time to explain why the benefits of that shiny new thing outweigh the costs of all that other stuff.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
wayoutthere 5y ago
I can’t understate this enough. A client will often go with a platform solution that is 80% of what they need than the bespoke one simply because it avoids 3-6 months of procurement delay. Even if you develop a novel infrastructure technology, AWS’ implementation will be better in the eyes of a corporation because it comes from AWS. You’re right; these platform services are often more expensive — but the critical thing is that the company gets a management benefit from this in that their existing tool stack around things like IaC or CI/CD will mostly just work. They can easily use the security standards and setup they already have without having to run the solution through a full security review or build a bunch of tooling around a third-party product. The only exception to this is when we’re talking about revenue-generating activity driven by the business. Often differentiating tech is needed there, but it’s also the same situation with platforms like SAP and Salesforce sucking most of the oxygen out of the room. But infrastructure is a particularly bad place to be as a software vendor right now; even the “success stories” like Snowflake are running into headwinds competing with platform services. TLDR: time to market is the main reason pushing people to platform services. This is making it increasingly difficult for ISVs / SaaS — even large ones — to make inroads to displace their competition.
- tharne 5y ago
  There's also the "Nobody gets fired for buying IBM" principle at work here. AWS is a safe choice that no one will question you on later, even if it's not the right choice or the best one.

villasv 5y ago

> Since I was a big fan of Redis , I had to painstakingly explain with cost projections of the implications of using AWS services for this solution. Your tone shows annoyance, but that's just doing your job properly. "I'm a fan" isn't really valid reasoning to choose RedisLabs.

manishsharan 5y ago
In a large enterprise, you have to be really passnionate about a new technology to get it approved through a series of excrutiatingly long review process while also working on your assigned projects. Nobody will mind or question your decision if you choose to use MS SQL or Oracle for KV stores because they are corporate standards. Presenting a new technology like Redis requires one to prepare documents for backup, failover , load balancing, support,iniciden management process anlong with a slew of security related reviews. Did I mention that all this while you are also responsible for staying on to of your JIRA tasks ? And even if you do get this technology certified, it means almost nothing on your bonus or yearly review. So yes .. one has to be a "fan" to push new techologies or vendors like RedisLabs in the enterprise. And yes, the process will make you a tad annoyed.
- remus 5y ago
  That seems...sensible. When you start using a new product there's a lot of hidden costs associated with it (backup, failover, load balancing, support, incident management) so you need to take the time to explain why the benefits of that shiny new thing outweigh the costs of all that other stuff.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

wayoutthere 5y ago

I can’t understate this enough. A client will often go with a platform solution that is 80% of what they need than the bespoke one simply because it avoids 3-6 months of procurement delay. Even if you develop a novel infrastructure technology, AWS’ implementation will be better in the eyes of a corporation because it comes from AWS. You’re right; these platform services are often more expensive — but the critical thing is that the company gets a management benefit from this in that their existing tool stack around things like IaC or CI/CD will mostly just work. They can easily use the security standards and setup they already have without having to run the solution through a full security review or build a bunch of tooling around a third-party product. The only exception to this is when we’re talking about revenue-generating activity driven by the business. Often differentiating tech is needed there, but it’s also the same situation with platforms like SAP and Salesforce sucking most of the oxygen out of the room. But infrastructure is a particularly bad place to be as a software vendor right now; even the “success stories” like Snowflake are running into headwinds competing with platform services. TLDR: time to market is the main reason pushing people to platform services. This is making it increasingly difficult for ISVs / SaaS — even large ones — to make inroads to displace their competition.

tharne 5y ago
There's also the "Nobody gets fired for buying IBM" principle at work here. AWS is a safe choice that no one will question you on later, even if it's not the right choice or the best one.