5 ms·

So, just buy another and leave it as a hot (or cold) standby in a different data-center. Or use AWS as the DR site an spin it up only if the local HW fails. Th

So, just buy another and leave it as a hot (or cold) standby in a different data-center. Or use AWS as the DR site an spin it up only if the local HW fails. This sounds expensive if your talking one server and vs a year of AWS charges, but is a tiny bump if it turns out you need to buy a dozen servers to replace a large AWS bill. Plus, I think most people underestimate how reliable server grade hardware is. Most of it gets retired because its functionally obsolete, not because a power supply/whatever fails. Which brings up the point, that the vast number of failures with server grade hardware are on replaceable components like power supplies, disks, SFP's, etc. Three or four years out those parts are available on the secondary markets frequently for pocket change.

bcrosby95 5y ago
Yeah. We run servers into the ground where I work. We have around 20 of them. Average age is around 11 years old. Oldest is around 18.
- Underphil 5y ago
  Holy crap. I work in a relatively young sector and we retire them no later than 5 years. Do you mind sharing the type of business you work for?
  - bcrosby95 5y ago
    It's a smallish, family ran company. We don't have any particular sector, and historically have done both business and consumer software. Currently we're primarily working on a game - where many of us definitely feel like a fish out of water - but we have a few old websites and apps that pay the bills. Everything has been bootstrapped going back to around 1999.
wwweston 5y ago
> Or use AWS as the DR site an spin it up only if the local HW fails. Yep. This seems like the obvious setup to me: 1) make the usual case as economical as possible (and ownership and the associated control will probably help here, unless you have to lease the expertise too) 2) outsource the exceptional case (ownership is less likely to matter here, and will matter for less time even if it does)
- freedomben 5y ago
  This is exactly what many of the really big enterprises do. At their scale the cloud becomes laughable. But as a backup, it's the clear way to go. Primary on prem with automatic failover to the cloud. I worked with a large customer to help build this for them. OpenShift running on-prem, but they had some failover equipment that would ansible them an OpenShift cluster on aws. Depending on the nature of the failure it did take a little time to fail over, but 15 to 30 mins of downtime in the event of a catastrophic failure is often worth it to save hundreds of millions per year.
christophilus 5y ago
> most people underestimate how reliable server grade hardware is This. And there are millions of dollars of cloud marketing materials and programs that are at least partly to blame.
chrismarlow9 5y ago
The original intended use for AWS was to be additional capacity for existing non cloud setups during spikes. Things like investment firms and algorithmic trading setups that cost money during downtime. They found a larger market in being the full infrastructure, so they started down the road to cloud appliances making it easy for any average Joe to spin up infra. This was in ec2 classic era before VPC was a thing. So your active/passive setup description is actually using AWS appropriately based on it's original ideas.

bcrosby95 5y ago

Yeah. We run servers into the ground where I work. We have around 20 of them. Average age is around 11 years old. Oldest is around 18.

Underphil 5y ago
Holy crap. I work in a relatively young sector and we retire them no later than 5 years. Do you mind sharing the type of business you work for?
- bcrosby95 5y ago
  It's a smallish, family ran company. We don't have any particular sector, and historically have done both business and consumer software. Currently we're primarily working on a game - where many of us definitely feel like a fish out of water - but we have a few old websites and apps that pay the bills. Everything has been bootstrapped going back to around 1999.

wwweston 5y ago

> Or use AWS as the DR site an spin it up only if the local HW fails. Yep. This seems like the obvious setup to me: 1) make the usual case as economical as possible (and ownership and the associated control will probably help here, unless you have to lease the expertise too) 2) outsource the exceptional case (ownership is less likely to matter here, and will matter for less time even if it does)

freedomben 5y ago
This is exactly what many of the really big enterprises do. At their scale the cloud becomes laughable. But as a backup, it's the clear way to go. Primary on prem with automatic failover to the cloud. I worked with a large customer to help build this for them. OpenShift running on-prem, but they had some failover equipment that would ansible them an OpenShift cluster on aws. Depending on the nature of the failure it did take a little time to fail over, but 15 to 30 mins of downtime in the event of a catastrophic failure is often worth it to save hundreds of millions per year.

christophilus 5y ago

> most people underestimate how reliable server grade hardware is This. And there are millions of dollars of cloud marketing materials and programs that are at least partly to blame.

chrismarlow9 5y ago

The original intended use for AWS was to be additional capacity for existing non cloud setups during spikes. Things like investment firms and algorithmic trading setups that cost money during downtime. They found a larger market in being the full infrastructure, so they started down the road to cloud appliances making it easy for any average Joe to spin up infra. This was in ec2 classic era before VPC was a thing. So your active/passive setup description is actually using AWS appropriately based on it's original ideas.