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I feel like there's a middle step missing from this article (or I just missed it reading quickly) - did they build their own data center? Where are these new no

I feel like there's a middle step missing from this article (or I just missed it reading quickly) - did they build their own data center? Where are these new non-AWS servers physically located?

hotpotamus 4y ago
Colo would also be an option. I run a mix of colo and cloud currently.
fabian2k 4y ago
You can easily rent space in a data center and put your own servers in there or just rent dedicated servers. The cheapest provider there is probably Hetzner, but then your servers are in Germany. This gets you a real, full server for something between 30-200 EUR per month. There are many other hosting providers that offer dedicated servers also in the US, e.g. OVH. This works the same way, they are usually more expensive than Hetzner. Renting a dedicated server is very similar to renting a VM. It has a much higher provisioning time, usually hours to 1-2 days. And it takes some upfront cost or a time commitment. But it also has a lot more raw power. So if you don't require the flexibility VMs and the cloud provide they can be a very effective alternative.
- unity1001 4y ago
  > The cheapest provider there is probably Hetzner, but then your servers are in Germany They have a US DC now. Though it only gives cloud servers. However even those are still way cheaper than any alternative.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  If you want rocksolid dedicated servers of utmost HA and reliability, look no further than Equinix Metal: https://metal.equinix.com/product/servers/ https://metal.equinix.com/product/servers/ They run datacenters for other datacenter companies. Most people have never heard of them because they're a $6B/year revenue beast that runs behind the scenes; but they also offer direct metal servers.
teraflop 4y ago
In addition, usually the main financial effect of going from AWS to on-premises is to replace a lot of your recurring monthly costs with up-front capital costs. The article spends a lot of time talking about how much lower their monthly bill is, but it says nothing about how much they spent to buy those 300 servers in the first place.
- sabujp 4y ago
  by servers i think they meant microservice apps/binaries/vms/containers, etc not physical machines. I also want to know what physical hardware they purchased, where they racked them, how much colocation costs, etc, etc and they go into none of that.
- bombcar 4y ago
  If you want recurring monthly costs for capital devices there are companies setup to do that for you. They lease you the equipment. Yay.
- brandon 4y ago
  In my experience with modest specifications, you can source servers from tier 1 vendors (Dell, HPE, etc) with 5 years of support for less than a 1 year commitment for the roughly equivalent AWS or GCE instances (without prepayment). The monthly opex to house and power and cool those servers isn't _negligible_, but if you're doing back of napkin math comparing MRCs to Cloud you can just deduct the costs from their bandwidth charges that have been marked up 10,000%
Syonyk 4y ago
You can rent space in your local datacenters. If you're a business, you probably rent by the rack (and can more or less do what you want in the rack subject to power limits and datacenter policies). If you're an individual, most datacenters have some shared rack space (with controlled access, for some value of controlled - usually a datacenter employee has to be in there with you) that's rented by the U. I put a box of mine in a local datacenter, to their... endless confusion (not only do they not deal with random individuals that often, I actually read contracts so asked questions about why I had to prove my worker's comp payments and some other weird stuff that they removed). Monthly rental payments are about what I was paying in a range of cloud spend, but the system is far more capable, and I can do a lot more on it.

I feel like there's a middle step missing from this article (or I just missed it reading quickly) - did they build their own data center? Where are these new non-AWS servers physically located?

hotpotamus 4y ago

Colo would also be an option. I run a mix of colo and cloud currently.

fabian2k 4y ago

You can easily rent space in a data center and put your own servers in there or just rent dedicated servers. The cheapest provider there is probably Hetzner, but then your servers are in Germany. This gets you a real, full server for something between 30-200 EUR per month. There are many other hosting providers that offer dedicated servers also in the US, e.g. OVH. This works the same way, they are usually more expensive than Hetzner. Renting a dedicated server is very similar to renting a VM. It has a much higher provisioning time, usually hours to 1-2 days. And it takes some upfront cost or a time commitment. But it also has a lot more raw power. So if you don't require the flexibility VMs and the cloud provide they can be a very effective alternative.

unity1001 4y ago
> The cheapest provider there is probably Hetzner, but then your servers are in Germany They have a US DC now. Though it only gives cloud servers. However even those are still way cheaper than any alternative.
systemvoltage 4y ago
If you want rocksolid dedicated servers of utmost HA and reliability, look no further than Equinix Metal: https://metal.equinix.com/product/servers/ https://metal.equinix.com/product/servers/ They run datacenters for other datacenter companies. Most people have never heard of them because they're a $6B/year revenue beast that runs behind the scenes; but they also offer direct metal servers.

teraflop 4y ago

In addition, usually the main financial effect of going from AWS to on-premises is to replace a lot of your recurring monthly costs with up-front capital costs. The article spends a lot of time talking about how much lower their monthly bill is, but it says nothing about how much they spent to buy those 300 servers in the first place.

sabujp 4y ago
by servers i think they meant microservice apps/binaries/vms/containers, etc not physical machines. I also want to know what physical hardware they purchased, where they racked them, how much colocation costs, etc, etc and they go into none of that.
bombcar 4y ago
If you want recurring monthly costs for capital devices there are companies setup to do that for you. They lease you the equipment. Yay.
brandon 4y ago
In my experience with modest specifications, you can source servers from tier 1 vendors (Dell, HPE, etc) with 5 years of support for less than a 1 year commitment for the roughly equivalent AWS or GCE instances (without prepayment). The monthly opex to house and power and cool those servers isn't _negligible_, but if you're doing back of napkin math comparing MRCs to Cloud you can just deduct the costs from their bandwidth charges that have been marked up 10,000%

Syonyk 4y ago

You can rent space in your local datacenters. If you're a business, you probably rent by the rack (and can more or less do what you want in the rack subject to power limits and datacenter policies). If you're an individual, most datacenters have some shared rack space (with controlled access, for some value of controlled - usually a datacenter employee has to be in there with you) that's rented by the U. I put a box of mine in a local datacenter, to their... endless confusion (not only do they not deal with random individuals that often, I actually read contracts so asked questions about why I had to prove my worker's comp payments and some other weird stuff that they removed). Monthly rental payments are about what I was paying in a range of cloud spend, but the system is far more capable, and I can do a lot more on it.