7 ms·

> it cost me a few thousand dollars to delete my millions enities from the datastore after a migration job (ikai never replied my post though...) and im still

> it cost me a few thousand dollars to delete my millions enities from the datastore after a migration job (ikai never replied my post though...) and im still paying since the deletion is not completed yet (spending 100-300$ a day for the past 2 weeks now!!). I don't know much about GAE, but a datastore-as-a-service that takes 2 weeks to delete your data and charges $300 a day to do so just seems... absurd.

ntkachov 15y ago
Well, If you run a few million entries, each one needing to write an individual entry and each entry takes 200 ms to write, that's your 2 weeks right there. I don't know how they are using GAE and if there is an alternative to their methods, but I personally always saw GAE as a very specialized platform. You really only should use it if you need to tie into a google account.
- ryandvm 15y ago
  Even then it's not necessary. It's straightforward enough to use OAuth on any platform. In my experience, App Engine is mainly useful for in-house infrastructure apps for companies using the Google Apps platform. That or cheapskate developers throwing together a proof of concept / toy app in their spare time.
  - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
    Even toy apps can be had for free on other platforms. Dotcloud, Heroku, and AppHarbor all don't charge for the first instance.
diego 15y ago
In my opinion Google App Engine is a non-starter for serious applications. I only know of experiments and toys running there. Look at their gallery of successful applications: http://code.google.com/intl/it-IT/appengine/casestudies.html http://code.google.com/intl/it-IT/appengine/casestudies.html Contrast with AWS: http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/ http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/
- chucknthem 15y ago
  There are definitely serious applications and businesses built on appengine, mostly started before their price hike coming out of Beta last November. http://www.optimizely.com http://www.optimizely.com (YC W10) and http://shoesofprey.com http://shoesofprey.com are two notable examples.
  - taylorbuley 15y ago
    Rescuetime (YC W08) also uses it I believe
  - dextorious 15y ago
    I wouldn't call those two "serious" examples -- especially since the competitors (Amazon, Heroku, Rackspace etc) have orders of magnitude more popular, complex and profitable services running on them. This is like saying, "Famous actors frequent my restaurant" and point to a picture of Ralph Macchio. OK, somewhat known, but De Niro, Brad Pitt, Clooney and co eat at the joint across the street.
    - jay_kyburz 15y ago
      Actually, I think its great for startups. If you're a small team trying to work out what your product is, how to sell it and who is going to buy it, you have more important things to do than learn how to set up and run a server. Once you've worked out you have a product that people want you can start thinking about managing your own servers. People complain about migration, but its really not that big a deal.
      - mgkimsal 15y ago
        So instead of learning how to admin a server - a skill that is transferable anywhere and is pretty much a commodity skill for most web-based startups when they're - you know, "starting up" - you suggest people tie themselves to a proprietary app engine and datastore which limits what you can do in ways that aren't really transportable anywhere else? Spending time learning about GAE oddities, pricing limits, language limits/restrictions and such... seems a pretty horrible waste of time for people to engage in.
bemmu 15y ago
I love GAE, but deleting stuff is really the major WTF point. I am about to shut down one application that declined in popularity, because it costs me $20 / week to run it and revenue just dropped under $20 / week. The cost is not from instance hours, but purely from the stored data. Deleting the data from the data store would cost more than I could recoup, so that is not an option either. Also I really feel frustrated giving hours of thought to something that should be a really simple operation. Perhaps .delete() should be free? After all, when I shut down the app, Google does delete everything for free.
- jdeibele 15y ago
  My suggestion would be to turn off billing. That's what I did when the price went up on an app I had running and I didn't want to deal with deleting the data.

ntkachov 15y ago

Well, If you run a few million entries, each one needing to write an individual entry and each entry takes 200 ms to write, that's your 2 weeks right there. I don't know how they are using GAE and if there is an alternative to their methods, but I personally always saw GAE as a very specialized platform. You really only should use it if you need to tie into a google account.

ryandvm 15y ago
Even then it's not necessary. It's straightforward enough to use OAuth on any platform. In my experience, App Engine is mainly useful for in-house infrastructure apps for companies using the Google Apps platform. That or cheapskate developers throwing together a proof of concept / toy app in their spare time.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  Even toy apps can be had for free on other platforms. Dotcloud, Heroku, and AppHarbor all don't charge for the first instance.

diego 15y ago

In my opinion Google App Engine is a non-starter for serious applications. I only know of experiments and toys running there. Look at their gallery of successful applications: http://code.google.com/intl/it-IT/appengine/casestudies.html http://code.google.com/intl/it-IT/appengine/casestudies.html Contrast with AWS: http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/ http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/

chucknthem 15y ago
There are definitely serious applications and businesses built on appengine, mostly started before their price hike coming out of Beta last November. http://www.optimizely.com http://www.optimizely.com (YC W10) and http://shoesofprey.com http://shoesofprey.com are two notable examples.
- taylorbuley 15y ago
  Rescuetime (YC W08) also uses it I believe
- dextorious 15y ago
  I wouldn't call those two "serious" examples -- especially since the competitors (Amazon, Heroku, Rackspace etc) have orders of magnitude more popular, complex and profitable services running on them. This is like saying, "Famous actors frequent my restaurant" and point to a picture of Ralph Macchio. OK, somewhat known, but De Niro, Brad Pitt, Clooney and co eat at the joint across the street.
  - jay_kyburz 15y ago
    Actually, I think its great for startups. If you're a small team trying to work out what your product is, how to sell it and who is going to buy it, you have more important things to do than learn how to set up and run a server. Once you've worked out you have a product that people want you can start thinking about managing your own servers. People complain about migration, but its really not that big a deal.
    - mgkimsal 15y ago
      So instead of learning how to admin a server - a skill that is transferable anywhere and is pretty much a commodity skill for most web-based startups when they're - you know, "starting up" - you suggest people tie themselves to a proprietary app engine and datastore which limits what you can do in ways that aren't really transportable anywhere else? Spending time learning about GAE oddities, pricing limits, language limits/restrictions and such... seems a pretty horrible waste of time for people to engage in.

bemmu 15y ago

I love GAE, but deleting stuff is really the major WTF point. I am about to shut down one application that declined in popularity, because it costs me $20 / week to run it and revenue just dropped under $20 / week. The cost is not from instance hours, but purely from the stored data. Deleting the data from the data store would cost more than I could recoup, so that is not an option either. Also I really feel frustrated giving hours of thought to something that should be a really simple operation. Perhaps .delete() should be free? After all, when I shut down the app, Google does delete everything for free.

jdeibele 15y ago
My suggestion would be to turn off billing. That's what I did when the price went up on an app I had running and I didn't want to deal with deleting the data.