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I think this misses a much larger issue, which is that running your own datacenters (or just your own hardware) is becoming very unpopular. OpenStack could have

I think this misses a much larger issue, which is that running your own datacenters (or just your own hardware) is becoming very unpopular. OpenStack could have all the features in the world, but at the end of the day you need a team to run it. Having worked with large footprints on both OpenStack and AWS, it’s also clear that there are just inherent difficulties with running your own hardware, especially in your own data center. Even if you make the investment in a good infra team, it’s cost prohibitive to get anywhere near the experience of something like EC2 in terms of hardware availability and hourly billing. Not to mention they’re literally inventing their own hardware for things like high-performance storage and ARM servers.

hotpotamus 4y ago
Do you worry that given those trends, at some point AWS (or at least a tech oligopoly) will own all significant internet infrastructure? I do.
- Sevii 4y ago
  Could be a concern if hosting becomes impractical for normal people much like how email is basically impossible to host yourself.
- scott_w 4y ago
  Yes but when you're trying to build and maintain a product, ownership of the internet's infrastructure is low down on your list of problems. It's similar to the fact Microsoft owned desktop computing for many years. Yes, it was a problem, but the people purchasing Windows and Office weren't interested in solving it. They just want to do their jobs.
  - busterarm 4y ago
    Ma Bell used to be the only phone company and arguably did a better job than since the phone industry was deregulated...except maybe for introducing new products. (Slightly biased former Telco employee opinion)
- bluedino 4y ago
  I was just reading comments on HN that said companies are starting to realize the cloud is too expensive and moving back to DC's
busterarm 4y ago
There's a large enterprise push literally going on right now (and growing) to move towards hybrid cloud. To be honest I have no idea who the winners will be but as a user of OpenStack I can say for sure that that won't be it. Kubernetes and to a lesser degree Nomad are diverting orgs in a different direction. I would say that Nomad is probably far easier/better for most orgs. I've also seen a number of teams keen on buying their hardware from Oxide. It's a wild world out there right now.
ashinclouds 4y ago
This is definitely truth to this. Running your own infrastructure is not popular, much less "flashy". It is capital intensive. Some businesses explicitly avoid capital investment worsened by some localities having "fun" tax/accounting rules for capital assets. At some point, using an external service provider is a better tradeoff for the business decisions. The other major aspect is few basically run small scale infrastructure like people once did even just a decade ago, so the base knowledge and opportunity to learn is not what it once was, which is an overall technology industry conundrum.
vbezhenar 4y ago
May be I'm missing an elephant. Right now I'm client of hoster. This hoster provides openstack API to create VMs, disks, etc. I'm using that API to provision my infrastructure including kubernetes. What is supposed replacement for OpenStack? Some proprietary API glued with PHP and bash scripts? Who will write terraform provider for that API? Not me, not hoster for sure. Am I supposed to leave that small hoster and move to AWS? We don't have AWS data center in my country and I have obligations to keep data inside borders (that's not even saying that AWS like 5-10x more cost). The only realistic alternative to OpenStack is to throw away terraform and infra gitops and do everything manually. That's huge step backwards.
- fomine3 4y ago
  VMware?
  - vbezhenar 4y ago
    Ha-ha, they actually provide VMware as an alternative. But its price like 2x more which I don't understand, so I never tried it. That could work, I guess.
julienchastang 4y ago
> I think this misses a much larger issue, which is that running your own datacenters (or just your own hardware) is becoming very unpopular. Except that the commercial cloud is exorbitantly expensive, especially for persistent (i.e., always on) services. If your business has already invested in brick and mortar infrastructure, networks, sys admins etc. having an on-prem OpenStack cloud looks like a more appealing prospect especially for big projects and medium/large companies. Having employed OpenStack for a number of years, it is true that it does not always feel like a first class citizen. YMMV.

hotpotamus 4y ago

Do you worry that given those trends, at some point AWS (or at least a tech oligopoly) will own all significant internet infrastructure? I do.

Sevii 4y ago
Could be a concern if hosting becomes impractical for normal people much like how email is basically impossible to host yourself.
scott_w 4y ago
Yes but when you're trying to build and maintain a product, ownership of the internet's infrastructure is low down on your list of problems. It's similar to the fact Microsoft owned desktop computing for many years. Yes, it was a problem, but the people purchasing Windows and Office weren't interested in solving it. They just want to do their jobs.
- busterarm 4y ago
  Ma Bell used to be the only phone company and arguably did a better job than since the phone industry was deregulated...except maybe for introducing new products. (Slightly biased former Telco employee opinion)
bluedino 4y ago
I was just reading comments on HN that said companies are starting to realize the cloud is too expensive and moving back to DC's

busterarm 4y ago

There's a large enterprise push literally going on right now (and growing) to move towards hybrid cloud. To be honest I have no idea who the winners will be but as a user of OpenStack I can say for sure that that won't be it. Kubernetes and to a lesser degree Nomad are diverting orgs in a different direction. I would say that Nomad is probably far easier/better for most orgs. I've also seen a number of teams keen on buying their hardware from Oxide. It's a wild world out there right now.

ashinclouds 4y ago

This is definitely truth to this. Running your own infrastructure is not popular, much less "flashy". It is capital intensive. Some businesses explicitly avoid capital investment worsened by some localities having "fun" tax/accounting rules for capital assets. At some point, using an external service provider is a better tradeoff for the business decisions. The other major aspect is few basically run small scale infrastructure like people once did even just a decade ago, so the base knowledge and opportunity to learn is not what it once was, which is an overall technology industry conundrum.

vbezhenar 4y ago

May be I'm missing an elephant. Right now I'm client of hoster. This hoster provides openstack API to create VMs, disks, etc. I'm using that API to provision my infrastructure including kubernetes. What is supposed replacement for OpenStack? Some proprietary API glued with PHP and bash scripts? Who will write terraform provider for that API? Not me, not hoster for sure. Am I supposed to leave that small hoster and move to AWS? We don't have AWS data center in my country and I have obligations to keep data inside borders (that's not even saying that AWS like 5-10x more cost). The only realistic alternative to OpenStack is to throw away terraform and infra gitops and do everything manually. That's huge step backwards.

fomine3 4y ago
VMware?
- vbezhenar 4y ago
  Ha-ha, they actually provide VMware as an alternative. But its price like 2x more which I don't understand, so I never tried it. That could work, I guess.

julienchastang 4y ago

> I think this misses a much larger issue, which is that running your own datacenters (or just your own hardware) is becoming very unpopular. Except that the commercial cloud is exorbitantly expensive, especially for persistent (i.e., always on) services. If your business has already invested in brick and mortar infrastructure, networks, sys admins etc. having an on-prem OpenStack cloud looks like a more appealing prospect especially for big projects and medium/large companies. Having employed OpenStack for a number of years, it is true that it does not always feel like a first class citizen. YMMV.