3 ms·

Okay — but running 60 copies of a small EC2 for 1 min is $0.009 to $0.04 Running 100x test suites would be $0.90 to $4, in server costs. Charging 25-100x the

Okay — but running 60 copies of a small EC2 for 1 min is $0.009 to $0.04 Running 100x test suites would be $0.90 to $4, in server costs. Charging 25-100x the server costs is optimistic, at best.

punkpeye 4y ago
Unfortunately, EC2 is not an option if we want to deliver 1 minute promise. I need VMs that I can flash start with all the software needed to run the tests immediately available. The best I was able to achieve is 20 seconds using my current provider. However, they charge in hour increments. That being said, I am constantly experimenting how to reduce costs. I think the final result is going to be a fairly complicated orchestration of pre-booted machines that are rented by month and those that we spin up ad-hoc to handle demand fluctuation.
- banana_giraffe 4y ago
  Would Lambda be an option? Not sure what the stack looks like here, but a quick Google suggests people have gotten Cypress to run under Lambda, at least.
  - janosdebugs 4y ago
    In my experience Lambda can have a pretty slow start when it's cold.
    - banana_giraffe 4y ago
      Sure, for an interactive endpoint, but for this a cold start of 200-500ms, or even a second or two for a Docker backed Lambda, sounds very workable.
- janosdebugs 4y ago
  You could always be pre-pooling VMs once you hit a certain scale.
- zmgsabst 4y ago
  EC2 bare metal + running your own VMs would solve the latency issue; but now you’re going to have more complex rental dynamics. That would be $0.05 per core for an hour… or $0.05 for 60 copies for a minute. (Price for m5.metal on demand; a1.metal is half the price; m6a.metal is around $0.04) I think the idea is cool — and wish you the best of luck. I’m just trying to share why as a senior SDE your product doesn’t make sense to me: 100 integration tests a day is a fairly substantial team… and you’re charging a lot for it, at $2-3k per month.
- yuppie_scum 4y ago
  Y’all need Kubernetes.
- CoolCold 4y ago
  Sounds like you are on Hetzner. If that's so, you can take sever for around 60$ month there and put some load there - I doubt it gonna dip your pocket for such test.
Silhouette 4y ago
Software and infrastructure companies charge huge multiples of the hosting costs of providing their products and services all the time. The value they add isn't just leasing a VM on your behalf.
tracerbulletx 4y ago
The only time your costs should have anything to do with how you price something is when your customers know how much they are and they influence how much they'll pay, or setting lower limits so you don't go out of business.

Okay — but running 60 copies of a small EC2 for 1 min is $0.009 to $0.04 Running 100x test suites would be $0.90 to $4, in server costs. Charging 25-100x the server costs is optimistic, at best.

punkpeye 4y ago

Unfortunately, EC2 is not an option if we want to deliver 1 minute promise. I need VMs that I can flash start with all the software needed to run the tests immediately available. The best I was able to achieve is 20 seconds using my current provider. However, they charge in hour increments. That being said, I am constantly experimenting how to reduce costs. I think the final result is going to be a fairly complicated orchestration of pre-booted machines that are rented by month and those that we spin up ad-hoc to handle demand fluctuation.

banana_giraffe 4y ago
Would Lambda be an option? Not sure what the stack looks like here, but a quick Google suggests people have gotten Cypress to run under Lambda, at least.
- janosdebugs 4y ago
  In my experience Lambda can have a pretty slow start when it's cold.
  - banana_giraffe 4y ago
    Sure, for an interactive endpoint, but for this a cold start of 200-500ms, or even a second or two for a Docker backed Lambda, sounds very workable.
janosdebugs 4y ago
You could always be pre-pooling VMs once you hit a certain scale.
zmgsabst 4y ago
EC2 bare metal + running your own VMs would solve the latency issue; but now you’re going to have more complex rental dynamics. That would be $0.05 per core for an hour… or $0.05 for 60 copies for a minute. (Price for m5.metal on demand; a1.metal is half the price; m6a.metal is around $0.04) I think the idea is cool — and wish you the best of luck. I’m just trying to share why as a senior SDE your product doesn’t make sense to me: 100 integration tests a day is a fairly substantial team… and you’re charging a lot for it, at $2-3k per month.
yuppie_scum 4y ago
Y’all need Kubernetes.
CoolCold 4y ago
Sounds like you are on Hetzner. If that's so, you can take sever for around 60$ month there and put some load there - I doubt it gonna dip your pocket for such test.

Silhouette 4y ago

Software and infrastructure companies charge huge multiples of the hosting costs of providing their products and services all the time. The value they add isn't just leasing a VM on your behalf.

tracerbulletx 4y ago

The only time your costs should have anything to do with how you price something is when your customers know how much they are and they influence how much they'll pay, or setting lower limits so you don't go out of business.