5 ms·

Oh me too. That horrible "mythical beasts" tutorial. I thought I removed it, and then each month for the next two months I'd get nailed for 50? dollars or so.

Oh me too. That horrible "mythical beasts" tutorial. I thought I removed it, and then each month for the next two months I'd get nailed for 50? dollars or so. By definition, I don't understand AWS, so figuring out how to turn it off was nearly impossible. AWS "support" didn't exist. Stackoverflow AWS geeks were in high dudgeon that I'd ask the question, "how do i disable this?" and would kill my question. Finally some kind soul did give me the trick to finding the last service to disable. BTW the tutorial is absolutely useless. Just a thousand different incantations to repeat. No real understanding communicated. Felt more like an ad for myriad services. 0/10 would not recommend.

alchermd 5y ago
I understand what you feel completely. I actually wasn't even able to complete the tutorial since the commands given would trigger a permission error one way or another. I got charged $50 as well since I wasn't aware that there's still services running. Such a terrible thing to front as a "Getting Started" guide.
danjac 5y ago
There are consultancies whose entire expertise and premise are advising on AWS billing to companies who already know AWS, so the idea that a newbie should be aware of whatever magical incantation to limit their spend is ludicrous.
- laumars 5y ago
  That’s not entirely fair. While I’m not going to defend the complexity of billing in enterprise cloud services it’s also not really that hard to set an billing alert in CloudWatch and track spend in Cost Explorer. Sure it requires a little bit of AWS knowledge but you shouldn’t really be using enterprise services like AWS (over other more accessible services like Digital Oceans) if you’re not willing to spend the time learning it; and at an individual level it’s very manageable. The reason those consultancy firms exist is because billing scales terribly. Once you’re a business using AWS you’d likely have a multitude of projects running across a multitude of departments which need to be billed to a multitude of different customers and internet cost centres. This all needs to be processed by an internal 3rd party financial system managed by non-technical people who wont even know what AWS stands for let alone what it does and how it works. In those situations the problem of billing becomes exponentially more difficult than a one person hobby project.
  - danjac 5y ago
    > and at an individual level it’s very manageable And yet, we have horror stories of students and even experts being hit by surprise AWS bills. Although I agree about usage - I never go anywhere near AWS unless someone else is paying for it.
    - laumars 5y ago
      > > and at an individual level it’s very manageable > And yet, we have horror stories of students and even experts being hit by surprise AWS bills. They obviously didn’t bother to manage it. But that doesn’t mean it’s not manageable. It takes all of 5 minutes to set up a budget alarm on CloudWatch. It was one of the first things I looked into doing when I set up my own AWS account years ago specifically because I didn’t know what I was doing back then and thus didn’t want any surprises. If I managed it then, then I find it hard to believe others cannot too.
  - a5aAqU 5y ago
    > it’s also not really that hard to set an billing alert in CloudWatch and track spend in Cost Explorer Billing alerts aren't good enough. Consider a scenario where you're consulting on someone else's small- or medium-sized project and your bug costs the client a huge amount of money in the middle of the night. Now who pays? Say goodbye to your paycheck or reputation, even though it should have been preventable. Another scenario: you launch a startup, and a bug empties the bank account and kills the company. If the solution is to just not use things like AWS and GCP (including Firebase, which has no billing cap) when you're getting started, why are they advertised that way?
    - heavenlyblue 5y ago
      I think the issue with billing is the same issue you get with OOMs - which services should go down first if we’re out of money? In practice “OOM” (Out Of Money) is even worse than OOM because with Out Of Memory you are just above the available memory threshold, but with Out Of Money you are literally at 0 capacity which means every single service needs to be killed.
TimTheTinker 5y ago
I spun up an AWS service a year ago (while taking an AWS course I never finished) and haven't been able to find it or turn it off since. That's $9/month until I disable that credit card, which I might do one of these days. I thought they'd notice and disable my account after I successfully disputed the charge one time, but the bills just keep rolling in each month. This might be a bit overreactive, but... I'm building an MVP for a SaaS app and I sure as heck am not going to host it on AWS.
- laumars 5y ago
  You’re getting an invoice emailed surely? You can sign in with that email and close the account down. Happy to help you if you need any assistance Disclaimer: I don’t work for Amazon but I do work heavily in AWS.
dagw 5y ago
AWS "support" didn't exist. It's been 5 years since I was responsible for anything AWS, but back then at least support was surprisingly good even when spending less than $100 a month. Emails would get answered and I could often get someone on the phone within 24 hours if I needed.
- colde 5y ago
  I think it depends heavily on what area you want support for. EC 2 support is generally very good, billing support is reasonable if a bit slow. Support for a lot of their managed services, or media services is beyond useless. All the support engineer does is take your complaint and says they will check with the internal service team. Your ticket will just end up in "waiting for Amazon" state for weeks or months.
  - blowski 5y ago
    Indeed. The best outcome of going to the frequent AWS events is meeting people from AWS who you can actually contact in these kind of situations.
duckmysick 5y ago
> BTW the tutorial is absolutely useless. Just a thousand different incantations to repeat. No real understanding communicated. I share this sentiment after going through a lot of tech tutorials and onboardings. And it's not limited just to AWS. I find myself forgetting most of the information I was supposed to learn. I'm trying to be extra mindful and offer additional explanations when I'm writing procedural guides myself, but I still have a lot to improve.

alchermd 5y ago

I understand what you feel completely. I actually wasn't even able to complete the tutorial since the commands given would trigger a permission error one way or another. I got charged $50 as well since I wasn't aware that there's still services running. Such a terrible thing to front as a "Getting Started" guide.

danjac 5y ago

There are consultancies whose entire expertise and premise are advising on AWS billing to companies who already know AWS, so the idea that a newbie should be aware of whatever magical incantation to limit their spend is ludicrous.

laumars 5y ago
That’s not entirely fair. While I’m not going to defend the complexity of billing in enterprise cloud services it’s also not really that hard to set an billing alert in CloudWatch and track spend in Cost Explorer. Sure it requires a little bit of AWS knowledge but you shouldn’t really be using enterprise services like AWS (over other more accessible services like Digital Oceans) if you’re not willing to spend the time learning it; and at an individual level it’s very manageable. The reason those consultancy firms exist is because billing scales terribly. Once you’re a business using AWS you’d likely have a multitude of projects running across a multitude of departments which need to be billed to a multitude of different customers and internet cost centres. This all needs to be processed by an internal 3rd party financial system managed by non-technical people who wont even know what AWS stands for let alone what it does and how it works. In those situations the problem of billing becomes exponentially more difficult than a one person hobby project.
- danjac 5y ago
  > and at an individual level it’s very manageable And yet, we have horror stories of students and even experts being hit by surprise AWS bills. Although I agree about usage - I never go anywhere near AWS unless someone else is paying for it.
  - laumars 5y ago
    > > and at an individual level it’s very manageable > And yet, we have horror stories of students and even experts being hit by surprise AWS bills. They obviously didn’t bother to manage it. But that doesn’t mean it’s not manageable. It takes all of 5 minutes to set up a budget alarm on CloudWatch. It was one of the first things I looked into doing when I set up my own AWS account years ago specifically because I didn’t know what I was doing back then and thus didn’t want any surprises. If I managed it then, then I find it hard to believe others cannot too.
- a5aAqU 5y ago
  > it’s also not really that hard to set an billing alert in CloudWatch and track spend in Cost Explorer Billing alerts aren't good enough. Consider a scenario where you're consulting on someone else's small- or medium-sized project and your bug costs the client a huge amount of money in the middle of the night. Now who pays? Say goodbye to your paycheck or reputation, even though it should have been preventable. Another scenario: you launch a startup, and a bug empties the bank account and kills the company. If the solution is to just not use things like AWS and GCP (including Firebase, which has no billing cap) when you're getting started, why are they advertised that way?
  - heavenlyblue 5y ago
    I think the issue with billing is the same issue you get with OOMs - which services should go down first if we’re out of money? In practice “OOM” (Out Of Money) is even worse than OOM because with Out Of Memory you are just above the available memory threshold, but with Out Of Money you are literally at 0 capacity which means every single service needs to be killed.

TimTheTinker 5y ago

I spun up an AWS service a year ago (while taking an AWS course I never finished) and haven't been able to find it or turn it off since. That's $9/month until I disable that credit card, which I might do one of these days. I thought they'd notice and disable my account after I successfully disputed the charge one time, but the bills just keep rolling in each month. This might be a bit overreactive, but... I'm building an MVP for a SaaS app and I sure as heck am not going to host it on AWS.

laumars 5y ago
You’re getting an invoice emailed surely? You can sign in with that email and close the account down. Happy to help you if you need any assistance Disclaimer: I don’t work for Amazon but I do work heavily in AWS.

dagw 5y ago

AWS "support" didn't exist. It's been 5 years since I was responsible for anything AWS, but back then at least support was surprisingly good even when spending less than $100 a month. Emails would get answered and I could often get someone on the phone within 24 hours if I needed.

colde 5y ago
I think it depends heavily on what area you want support for. EC 2 support is generally very good, billing support is reasonable if a bit slow. Support for a lot of their managed services, or media services is beyond useless. All the support engineer does is take your complaint and says they will check with the internal service team. Your ticket will just end up in "waiting for Amazon" state for weeks or months.
- blowski 5y ago
  Indeed. The best outcome of going to the frequent AWS events is meeting people from AWS who you can actually contact in these kind of situations.

duckmysick 5y ago

> BTW the tutorial is absolutely useless. Just a thousand different incantations to repeat. No real understanding communicated. I share this sentiment after going through a lot of tech tutorials and onboardings. And it's not limited just to AWS. I find myself forgetting most of the information I was supposed to learn. I'm trying to be extra mindful and offer additional explanations when I'm writing procedural guides myself, but I still have a lot to improve.