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> It’s a shame, I wish there was a cloud provider that I actually liked I'm curious what it is about Azure that puts you off.

jaxn 3y ago
I’m on Azure, it’s still Microsoft. I like a lot of Microsoft stuff these days that plays nice with open source dev tools. Azure doesn’t get in the way of that, but my defaults are not their defaults. I’m perfectly happy with AKS. Their Postgres product is great (formerly citus). But at the the end of the day, they still want to sell Windows, Exchange, SQL Server, Active Directory, etc. That’s a choice I will probably never make, so it just feels like a mismatch.
- popinman322 3y ago
  Active Directory is actually pretty good I think. Having worked with both Azure and AWS, AzureAD makes AWS IAM permissions feel half baked. Granted my experience was inside Azure so we had the benefit of vertical integration.
  - steve_adams_86 3y ago
    AWS IAM is one of the worst AWS products I’ve used. I should take a look at AD.
- dumpsterdiver 3y ago
  > I like a lot of Microsoft stuff these days that plays nice with open source dev tools. I've spent very little time in the Microsoft ecosystem, but several years ago I was on a contract with a Microsoft shop and I found the MS server-related offerings to be pretty solid (granted, I was not the one paying for them). The one thing that still shocks me (and maybe it's changed since I last checked, but I'm guessing not) is their pricing model around some offerings that are applied per processor core. Holy moly! Need to blow a lot of cash really fast? Then MS SQL server is for you. Fortunately (/s), it was a government contract, and at that point in the fiscal cycle they were desperate to blow cash so they didn't get less of it the next cycle. That's always seemed like a perverse incentive to me: the people who do more with less resources get fewer resources the next round. Wouldn't it make more sense to give them more resources and incrementally expand the scope of their duties? They're clearly doing something right. Of course, it's always a balancing game. Perhaps the reason they were so efficient is because they had a limited amount of work to be done, and with more work they may not have performed with the same efficiency. Perhaps the reasoning behind such a policy is that they're not generally looking for super heroes who might burn themselves out after doing amazing work. They're looking for people who are okay being a little bored, but who will reliably get a specific job done.
steve_adams_86 3y ago
I should have been clear. I’ve barely used Azure. I helped a team migrate to it from AWS a while ago, and that went really well for a few reasons but the platform didn’t really grab me. Maybe that’s because I’m just not interested in delving into yet another platform and I should give it more of a chance. Comparable infrastructure on Azure somehow ended up costing that team around 60% of what their AWS setup cost which was a bit confusing. Their monthly spend went from $900 CAD to about $650. I never had a chance to dig deep on that, but I assume that before there was something clumsy happening with allowing expensive resources to live too long or something. It was a big difference for such a small company though. I’m not sure if that’s a thing (Azure being cheaper) but it made me think I should do price comparisons there next time I have a budget conscious client who isn’t already partial to another platform.

jaxn 3y ago

I’m on Azure, it’s still Microsoft. I like a lot of Microsoft stuff these days that plays nice with open source dev tools. Azure doesn’t get in the way of that, but my defaults are not their defaults. I’m perfectly happy with AKS. Their Postgres product is great (formerly citus). But at the the end of the day, they still want to sell Windows, Exchange, SQL Server, Active Directory, etc. That’s a choice I will probably never make, so it just feels like a mismatch.

popinman322 3y ago
Active Directory is actually pretty good I think. Having worked with both Azure and AWS, AzureAD makes AWS IAM permissions feel half baked. Granted my experience was inside Azure so we had the benefit of vertical integration.
- steve_adams_86 3y ago
  AWS IAM is one of the worst AWS products I’ve used. I should take a look at AD.
dumpsterdiver 3y ago
> I like a lot of Microsoft stuff these days that plays nice with open source dev tools. I've spent very little time in the Microsoft ecosystem, but several years ago I was on a contract with a Microsoft shop and I found the MS server-related offerings to be pretty solid (granted, I was not the one paying for them). The one thing that still shocks me (and maybe it's changed since I last checked, but I'm guessing not) is their pricing model around some offerings that are applied per processor core. Holy moly! Need to blow a lot of cash really fast? Then MS SQL server is for you. Fortunately (/s), it was a government contract, and at that point in the fiscal cycle they were desperate to blow cash so they didn't get less of it the next cycle. That's always seemed like a perverse incentive to me: the people who do more with less resources get fewer resources the next round. Wouldn't it make more sense to give them more resources and incrementally expand the scope of their duties? They're clearly doing something right. Of course, it's always a balancing game. Perhaps the reason they were so efficient is because they had a limited amount of work to be done, and with more work they may not have performed with the same efficiency. Perhaps the reasoning behind such a policy is that they're not generally looking for super heroes who might burn themselves out after doing amazing work. They're looking for people who are okay being a little bored, but who will reliably get a specific job done.

steve_adams_86 3y ago

I should have been clear. I’ve barely used Azure. I helped a team migrate to it from AWS a while ago, and that went really well for a few reasons but the platform didn’t really grab me. Maybe that’s because I’m just not interested in delving into yet another platform and I should give it more of a chance. Comparable infrastructure on Azure somehow ended up costing that team around 60% of what their AWS setup cost which was a bit confusing. Their monthly spend went from $900 CAD to about $650. I never had a chance to dig deep on that, but I assume that before there was something clumsy happening with allowing expensive resources to live too long or something. It was a big difference for such a small company though. I’m not sure if that’s a thing (Azure being cheaper) but it made me think I should do price comparisons there next time I have a budget conscious client who isn’t already partial to another platform.