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I worked at a startup that didn't use the cloud and was hemorrhaging money by only using a handful of compute in a DC despite renting a whole bunch of space/pow

I worked at a startup that didn't use the cloud and was hemorrhaging money by only using a handful of compute in a DC despite renting a whole bunch of space/power. They could have moved to AWS and saved a ton on cost, but their CTO was comfortable with renting colo space and knew how to run a colo-based tech company. There's not much you can do when people make bad decisions. At most you can understand the tradeoffs of the decision space and do your best. There's rarely a silver bullet.

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
There are options beside AWS and colo. A lot of companies are fine just using a handful of VPSes. I think the biggest problem with starting on AWS is engineers are extremely susceptible to playing with new toys - for better or worse. Engineers are going to try all AWSes new stuff, which is fine. The problem stems from engineers wanting to do stuff on the newest shiniest AWS toy whether that actually makes sense financially or much more importantly in terms of the product roadmap.
- Karrot_Kream 5y ago
  Yeah there's tons of options. There's the big clouds/cloud-native stuff. There's the cloud-VMs/VPSes. There's colos. There's making a DC at an office through DIA. Understanding these options is key to making a good, informed decision IMO.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  > whether that actually makes sense financially or much more importantly in terms of the product roadmap. If design docs don't at least mention the cost - and your business cares about cost - then you should probably have a chat with the engineering dept. At a prior FAANG job we included basic cost analysis in our decisions. You don't always need the cheaper option if it doesn't make sense, but you should probably know the traffic that shiny new toy will receive and the cost associated with it. (eg. soln A needs 25% more compute, and the internal price is X vs soln B needs 10% more compute, but will increase storage costs for caching at X per gb for ~Y gb). I recall a case where a coworker (Senior SDE in Silicon Valley, so easily 25k a month salary) spent a month reducing our $500 SQS bill to $350 because our director wanted to see teams making smart financial optimizations. Meanwhile, our EC2 bill was $50k a month. Not everything is smart financially to focus on fixing. What is the compSci quote on premature optimization?
  - noreallyitis 5y ago
    It's "premature ejaculation is the root of all evil"

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago

There are options beside AWS and colo. A lot of companies are fine just using a handful of VPSes. I think the biggest problem with starting on AWS is engineers are extremely susceptible to playing with new toys - for better or worse. Engineers are going to try all AWSes new stuff, which is fine. The problem stems from engineers wanting to do stuff on the newest shiniest AWS toy whether that actually makes sense financially or much more importantly in terms of the product roadmap.

Karrot_Kream 5y ago
Yeah there's tons of options. There's the big clouds/cloud-native stuff. There's the cloud-VMs/VPSes. There's colos. There's making a DC at an office through DIA. Understanding these options is key to making a good, informed decision IMO.
vineyardmike 5y ago
> whether that actually makes sense financially or much more importantly in terms of the product roadmap. If design docs don't at least mention the cost - and your business cares about cost - then you should probably have a chat with the engineering dept. At a prior FAANG job we included basic cost analysis in our decisions. You don't always need the cheaper option if it doesn't make sense, but you should probably know the traffic that shiny new toy will receive and the cost associated with it. (eg. soln A needs 25% more compute, and the internal price is X vs soln B needs 10% more compute, but will increase storage costs for caching at X per gb for ~Y gb). I recall a case where a coworker (Senior SDE in Silicon Valley, so easily 25k a month salary) spent a month reducing our $500 SQS bill to $350 because our director wanted to see teams making smart financial optimizations. Meanwhile, our EC2 bill was $50k a month. Not everything is smart financially to focus on fixing. What is the compSci quote on premature optimization?
- noreallyitis 5y ago
  It's "premature ejaculation is the root of all evil"