3 ms·

My firm is investing quite a lot of money / time / effort in our Azure infrastructure for relatively large and complex models (financial models with up to 10k c

by wjnc 4y ago

My firm is investing quite a lot of money / time / effort in our Azure infrastructure for relatively large and complex models (financial models with up to 10k cores; nothing very fancy just lots math and lots of customers). Our engineers are capable, they seem happy with the stack and we actually get pretty solid support from Microsoft. We ran into several Azure-specific bugs in the last few years which get timely triage, quick fixes within hours and solutions within weeks. We’re probably overpaying and have been Microsoft-centric for the decade I’m with the firm, so the local relationship is probably excellent. All in all it’s a lot more affordable than the license fees for niche supplier software we were using before. Point being it’s relative cost and engineer satisfaction that matter more than the last few million in costs.

robertlagrant 4y ago
Might be worth comparing them with other cloud providers rather than niche supplier software.
- wjnc 4y ago
  Part of our experience away from vendor specific tooling was building a team that could handle the transition. It started with perhaps 2 or 3 engineers doing PoC’s. Then an architect came on board with Azure experience. Things went from there. We’re now at about 40 engineers working for / with about 100 actuaries / quants. I know the lead architect has theoretical vendor neutrality in scope, but the aspect of successful teams working in the MS ‘package’ is alluring as well. We don’t need to squeeze the last drop - the projects are already successful both in financial and human terms. End of the day a business always has vendor risks. It’s about picking the cost-risk-reward structure that fits. All in all MS serves us well. (We do have healthy laughs about the internal accountmanager for MS always chasing the latest and greatest. Virtual desktops, Azure ML and such. The lead architect mentioned luckily decides on the stack, not our sales reps.)
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    Hah from what I understand Azure ML might be late, but it is not great :D

by wjnc 4y ago

robertlagrant 4y ago

Might be worth comparing them with other cloud providers rather than niche supplier software.

wjnc 4y ago
Part of our experience away from vendor specific tooling was building a team that could handle the transition. It started with perhaps 2 or 3 engineers doing PoC’s. Then an architect came on board with Azure experience. Things went from there. We’re now at about 40 engineers working for / with about 100 actuaries / quants. I know the lead architect has theoretical vendor neutrality in scope, but the aspect of successful teams working in the MS ‘package’ is alluring as well. We don’t need to squeeze the last drop - the projects are already successful both in financial and human terms. End of the day a business always has vendor risks. It’s about picking the cost-risk-reward structure that fits. All in all MS serves us well. (We do have healthy laughs about the internal accountmanager for MS always chasing the latest and greatest. Virtual desktops, Azure ML and such. The lead architect mentioned luckily decides on the stack, not our sales reps.)
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  Hah from what I understand Azure ML might be late, but it is not great :D