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Yeah, but it was only for a side-project, so I only had a single VM to migrate. I went from AWS (cost ~£25/mo) to Microsoft Azure DE because I didn't want any

Yeah, but it was only for a side-project, so I only had a single VM to migrate. I went from AWS (cost ~£25/mo) to Microsoft Azure DE because I didn't want any user data to be subject to search by US law enforcement/national security. I thought the bill would be about the same, but it more than quadrupled almost overnight even though traffic levels, etc., were the same (i.e., practically non-existent). What was happening was Azure was absolutely shafting me on bandwidth, even with Cloudflare in the mix (CF really doesn't help unless you're getting at a decent amount of traffic). In the end I moved to a dedicated server with OVH that was far more powerful and doesn't have the concerns around bandwidth charges (unless I start using a truly silly amount of bandwidth, of course).

dustinmoris 5y ago
Oh god quadrupled from £25/month for a small low traffic project as you have described sounds like daytime robbery!
- dx034 5y ago
  It might be different if you're a developer in SV, but I'd say for most people, that's not insignificant. That's more expensive than most hobbies, I wouldn't spend £100 on a side project if there's an alternative.
- bartread 5y ago
  Sure, but think about this: that little side project now has about 100x the traffic it did when my bill jumped. That still isn't much traffic (at all) in the grand scheme of things, and Cloudflare's lowest paid tier deals with around 80% of the bandwidth. Still, it's not hard to imagine that bill blowing up to several hundred pounds per month had I chosen not to act. That would translate to several thousand pounds over the course of a year. I don't know very many people for whom such an expenditure, particularly if it's unnecessary and avoidable, would be something they'd regard as insignificant. Putting it into everyday terms: it could have grown into my second largest outgoing after my mortgage. That doesn't really seem proportionate or sensible, so why wouldn't I look for a better deal?
acapybara 5y ago
+1 on dedicated server. It's so much simpler & cost effective than the cloud. 10 big dedicated servers can probably handle the same load as 100s to 1000s of cloud nodes for a fraction of the cost. Configuration and general complexity might even be simpler without the cloud. It's not as hard as people make it out to be to set up backup and redundancy/failover.
- dx034 5y ago
  Absolutely. And dedicated servers at many providers (e.g. Hetzner, OVH) can be provisioned much like vms. So the only real difference is that usually there's a minimum contract of 1 month, but often at a price where it's cheaper than running a VM at a cloud provider for 30% of the time.
bombcar 5y ago
There are two kinds of cloud users - those who treat their cloud as a VM to use, and those who actually use all the fancy API features. The first group are almost always better served by dedicated VMs or hardware from a provider specializing in the, if the VM is long-lived.
- phillu 5y ago
  That's something I find so fascinating. The "cloud" will almost always be more expensive and "not worth it" if you are only using the IaaS services. I mean, look at the numbers, everyone sees that. Cloud only ever is worth it when one uses the higher-tier services, like AWS Lambda and the likes. Even running Kubernetes in the cloud is only semi worth it, because it's not high enough in the stack and still touches too many low-level IaaS services. Of course, higher tier means more vendor lock-in and more knowledge required and all that. But if you are not willing to pay that price, then OVH, Hetzner and the likes will have better offerings for you.
  - ChasingEchoes 5y ago
    the problem as many have already pointed out around this thread, is that, in an enterprise env. you cant really do that too much anymore. And as a result that starts being felt by non-enterprise shops too. And you cant really do that because people dont really wanna deal with on-prem shit and server hostings Tehnically speaking, i am rhcsa certified, i know how to do all of this on-prem, hybrid things. I dont even bother looking at job offers from companies that arent cloud based (even if i would get a 10-15% increase, or more if coming from the financial sector) because, i genuinely cant be arsed to deal with all that bullshit again. I'm done with caring about disk space, and hw firewalls and configuring bs in linux. Fuck iptables, let me manage everything from a (network) security group. Fuck Traefik and F5 and all this bs, let me just plop an Application Gatway in Azure or API gateway in AWS. Fuck database clusters. At this point, i havent even configured an apache/nginx server in a couple of years. WebApps in Azure are more than fine; and for the rest K8s. As a result, good "classic" sysadmins are a dying breed even at enterprise level. So they're even more rare and accessible for small/medium sized business. If i go to my IT dept. right now, i can guarantee 80% of them would be completely lost to setup and use an AD, AAD is just too convenient. That basically leaves you with: move to cloud, or learn how to do all of these things by yourself. And those things take time (to learn and to manage) It's like deciding to make apps with Perl. Can you do it? sure. But you'll probably have to do it on your own.

dustinmoris 5y ago

Oh god quadrupled from £25/month for a small low traffic project as you have described sounds like daytime robbery!

dx034 5y ago
It might be different if you're a developer in SV, but I'd say for most people, that's not insignificant. That's more expensive than most hobbies, I wouldn't spend £100 on a side project if there's an alternative.
bartread 5y ago
Sure, but think about this: that little side project now has about 100x the traffic it did when my bill jumped. That still isn't much traffic (at all) in the grand scheme of things, and Cloudflare's lowest paid tier deals with around 80% of the bandwidth. Still, it's not hard to imagine that bill blowing up to several hundred pounds per month had I chosen not to act. That would translate to several thousand pounds over the course of a year. I don't know very many people for whom such an expenditure, particularly if it's unnecessary and avoidable, would be something they'd regard as insignificant. Putting it into everyday terms: it could have grown into my second largest outgoing after my mortgage. That doesn't really seem proportionate or sensible, so why wouldn't I look for a better deal?

acapybara 5y ago

+1 on dedicated server. It's so much simpler & cost effective than the cloud. 10 big dedicated servers can probably handle the same load as 100s to 1000s of cloud nodes for a fraction of the cost. Configuration and general complexity might even be simpler without the cloud. It's not as hard as people make it out to be to set up backup and redundancy/failover.

dx034 5y ago
Absolutely. And dedicated servers at many providers (e.g. Hetzner, OVH) can be provisioned much like vms. So the only real difference is that usually there's a minimum contract of 1 month, but often at a price where it's cheaper than running a VM at a cloud provider for 30% of the time.

bombcar 5y ago

There are two kinds of cloud users - those who treat their cloud as a VM to use, and those who actually use all the fancy API features. The first group are almost always better served by dedicated VMs or hardware from a provider specializing in the, if the VM is long-lived.

phillu 5y ago
That's something I find so fascinating. The "cloud" will almost always be more expensive and "not worth it" if you are only using the IaaS services. I mean, look at the numbers, everyone sees that. Cloud only ever is worth it when one uses the higher-tier services, like AWS Lambda and the likes. Even running Kubernetes in the cloud is only semi worth it, because it's not high enough in the stack and still touches too many low-level IaaS services. Of course, higher tier means more vendor lock-in and more knowledge required and all that. But if you are not willing to pay that price, then OVH, Hetzner and the likes will have better offerings for you.
- ChasingEchoes 5y ago
  the problem as many have already pointed out around this thread, is that, in an enterprise env. you cant really do that too much anymore. And as a result that starts being felt by non-enterprise shops too. And you cant really do that because people dont really wanna deal with on-prem shit and server hostings Tehnically speaking, i am rhcsa certified, i know how to do all of this on-prem, hybrid things. I dont even bother looking at job offers from companies that arent cloud based (even if i would get a 10-15% increase, or more if coming from the financial sector) because, i genuinely cant be arsed to deal with all that bullshit again. I'm done with caring about disk space, and hw firewalls and configuring bs in linux. Fuck iptables, let me manage everything from a (network) security group. Fuck Traefik and F5 and all this bs, let me just plop an Application Gatway in Azure or API gateway in AWS. Fuck database clusters. At this point, i havent even configured an apache/nginx server in a couple of years. WebApps in Azure are more than fine; and for the rest K8s. As a result, good "classic" sysadmins are a dying breed even at enterprise level. So they're even more rare and accessible for small/medium sized business. If i go to my IT dept. right now, i can guarantee 80% of them would be completely lost to setup and use an AD, AAD is just too convenient. That basically leaves you with: move to cloud, or learn how to do all of these things by yourself. And those things take time (to learn and to manage) It's like deciding to make apps with Perl. Can you do it? sure. But you'll probably have to do it on your own.