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I'm quite negatively surprised that a government service is moving from their own platform to AWS for such an important service.

cpursley 3y ago
And an American one, at that (we’re talking government services here, not some SaaS). Are there really no native UK cloud providers?
- cameronh90 3y ago
  Not any remotely comparable. The small “cloud” providers we do have were just reselling vSphere last time I looked into it.
jazzyjackson 3y ago
I don't know what it's like in UK but it may be the case that government has a hard time a{ttract,fford}ing talent to administer everything in house. Not that AWS is great for cost saving but if its between paying 50k/year for cloud services and not being able to find an engineer who will competently do the job for less than 50k, then the cloud is your only move really.
- swozey 3y ago
  They require various clearances (digging into your life and past relationships to a miserable degree), don't allow someone to have ever smoked pot and pay half or less of what you can make in the pvt sector here (usa). Everyone I know working FedRAMP jobs is prior military/g-level.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    They wouldn't need that. And having been SC cleared in the UK, and known a few DV-cleared ones, at least in the UK they don't care if you've smoked pot. They just care that if you have, that you don't mind your family knowing one day. They don't want people who can be blackmailed.
    - swozey 3y ago
      Here it's like this: Don't ever lie to them, "no matter what it is they'll find out." So, some people don't lie, say they smoked pot in high school and none of them make it to the next step. I had a twitter convo last year or pre-x whenever with the CTO of some org I can't remember (I don't think centcom, something much smaller) and he mentioned that they've lightened up quite a bit, or at least his program which was a softwar engineering group was more lenient. He was looking for engineers on via twitter on his official account. So maybe that's loosening up here thankfully.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- justsomehnguy 3y ago
  > who will competently do the job for less than 50k, then the cloud is your only move really Well, there is the other way, but, as we know, never ever that would happen.
- prmoustache 3y ago
  Once your past the emerging startup status, running on the cloud involve as much engineers and complexity as running on prem if you want to follow best practices. The "let's be managed and only hire developers" is a huge myth. All large organizations involve tons of "cloud engineers" or "devops" depending on how they want to call them and are just sysadmins with a different name and a bigger paycheck. Having actual datacenters doesn't add a ton of complexity and datacenters themselves are often managed by people who don't even have an engineer paycheck. The main difference between being on prem vs cloud is you have to plan (how many servers/storage/network equipment you have to buy and replace on the following year) and pay for stuff (like space, racks) more in advance + take into accounts delays in delivery. This is where cloud makes the job much faster for companies but given the slow pace at which gov stuff happen usually I don't think this is a problem for them.
- solatic 3y ago
  > and not being able to find an engineer Remember it's not just about being able to find one single engineer - then they become key-person risk. You need multiple engineers to be able to handle the loss of that engineer, either temporarily (vacation) or permanently (suddenly hit by a bus). Then you end up having a team of DBAs. Then you have functional rather than feature teams. Then you need multiple managers to align to get anything done, and have internal politics. Being able to consume databases as a product has non-trivial value.
ris 3y ago
GOV.UK PaaS also runs on AWS (for as long as it remains to exist)
okasaki 3y ago
All UK businesses run on Oracle and Microsoft, so I'm not sure why you're surprised. They have us by the balls.
kingkongjaffa 3y ago
> This is an AWS RDS PostgreSQL database and it lives in the PaaS’ AWS account. Our apps that run in the PaaS talk to this database. We are going to call this database our ‘source database’. It already was. Read the article.
conception 3y ago
AWS has a lot of pre-audited compliance built into their services. Being able to inherit their certification for services can save an organization a lot of time and effort.
- lnxg33k1 3y ago
  Its not an organisation, its a blucking government, it handles citizen data, and its sending them to a company of foreign country, because it can’t hire some system administrators? A GOVERNMENT? What are they doing? Still looking for their product market fit and can’t afford the headcount? Is it a joke? EDIT If they are looking for money id like to participate a bit in the seed round
  - kunwon1 3y ago
    AWS has a G-Cloud for UK just like they have one for US, no?
    - snoman 3y ago
      AWS has government specific regions (called GovCloud). Many services or features make it to GovCloud later than other regions because of the certification requirements.
    - travem 3y ago
      AWS has US based GovCloud regions: AWS GovCloud (US-East) and AWS GovCloud (US-West). It does not have a UK specific GovCloud region that I am aware of.
    - bboygravity 3y ago
      Why can't the UK government build there own cloud? It's just completely insane to me that they would make the gov internet infrastructure completely (geopolitically) dependent on another country AND just literally give all their (citizens') data away AND pay for that "privilege"?! I mean if the government can't host the government's websites using tech from the government's country, maybe it would be better to just forget about the whole cyberweb thing altogether? Just turn it off?
otteromkram 3y ago
I'd argue that AWS is much better suited than self-hosting because it's such an important service. Downtime becomes negligible and global reach vastly increases with comparably little cost.
0xbadcafebee 3y ago
That sentence was a little confusing. You're not happy that the government is hiring experts to run an important service?
- dtnewman 3y ago
  Yes. RDS is a very reasonable choice if you are a tech company, let alone a govt org. The alternative isn’t “let’s host this ourselves” it is “let’s host this with Oracle at a much higher cost”.
  - 15457345234 3y ago
    The alternative - at government scale - is absolutely 'let's host this ourselves' and that's what they should be doing, to ensure that institutional expertise remains. They should also own and operate their own datacentres which should be physically secure, not shared with commercial ventures and guarded by the armed forces, not civilian security.
    - 0xbadcafebee 3y ago
      Why doesn't the government manufacture their own cars? They're going to lose institutional expertise in building cars! They should also own and operate their own manufacturing facilities which should be physically secure, not shared with some 'civilian commercial venture'. By golly, the government can't do business if it isn't a datacenter operations company, a software vendor, and a car manufacturer.
      - 15457345234 3y ago
        > By golly, the government can't do business if it isn't a datacenter operations company, a software vendor, and a car manufacturer. I mean, precisely, which is why some countries are rapidly turning into failed states. Too much buck-passing and outsourcing.
  - tobias_irmer 3y ago
    It isn't? AWS is crazy expensive and you don't have as much control over things as you may occasionally need. The best decision we took in the past few years with regards to infrastructure was moving away from AWS and doing everything ourselves. On RDS we had inexplicable spikes in cost, deteriorating support and no real support for any of our issues. When we tried using DMS, it just didn't work as expected, even after spending two days on the phone with their support.
pixelesque 3y ago
As other comments point out, their own platform was (at least in terms of DB) already running on AWS, just using a different account.
- foofie 3y ago
  > As other comments point out, their own platform was (at least in terms of DB) already running on AWS, just using a different account. That changes nothing. It just means this unjustifiable nonsense is going on for a while.
pmcp 3y ago
As somebody who worked for the European Commission, and a european national government, I agree with your sentiment, but the harsh reality is that government divisions in generally work on a shoe string budget, when it comes to decisions like these. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a “best effort given the circumstances” move.
_joel 3y ago
There's an absolute ton of stuff on AWS. There used to be gCloud that allowed for smaller clouds to tender for government contracts bit there was a big pull to AWS, at least from my experience with it.
ivix 3y ago
I'm surprised that you're surprised. Why on earth would government not be migrating to the cloud?
NomDePlum 3y ago
Why? I've worked on a number of UK government projects, including some with particularly sensitive security and data requirements. Having some knowledge of their on-prem data centres and UK Cloud offering they have also used moving to AWS has so many operational, security and resilience benefits that aren't available elsewhere. It's not a free-lunch by any means and needs thought and governance certainly but the procurement simplification benefits alone make going to the public cloud a no brainer for a lot of government services. It is worth knowing that even the on-prem data centres are usually operated by 3rd parties such as HP, BT and IBM. There was an initiative to have "Crown-managed" data-centers but it's not particularly scalable.
overstay8930 3y ago
If you saw how non-tech companies run datacenters, well let's just say they're not exactly working with NATO like the big 3 cloud providers do when designing their DCs and backbone. Honestly you should be frightened when you see someone NOT using a cloud provider, because it is hard work to properly run and secure a datacenter. Even Equinix fucks up HARD regularly and they are considered the gold standard (shout out to those I saw at 350 E Cermak over the weekend).
msla 3y ago
It incentivizes public-private cooperation: If the government cracks down on Amazon, Amazon turns off the government's AWS accounts and deletes the data. The government finds that subpoenaing a wiped hard drive is utterly nugatory, and thereby learns humility.
mobilemidget 3y ago
"The PaaS team offered us the ability to migrate databases using AWS Database Migration Service (DMS)." And I'm not surprised if, they got some kickback, discount etc in some way to promote AWS on their blog. Not claiming its so, but I would not be surprised at all. It reads as one big advertisement.

cpursley 3y ago

And an American one, at that (we’re talking government services here, not some SaaS). Are there really no native UK cloud providers?

cameronh90 3y ago
Not any remotely comparable. The small “cloud” providers we do have were just reselling vSphere last time I looked into it.

jazzyjackson 3y ago

I don't know what it's like in UK but it may be the case that government has a hard time a{ttract,fford}ing talent to administer everything in house. Not that AWS is great for cost saving but if its between paying 50k/year for cloud services and not being able to find an engineer who will competently do the job for less than 50k, then the cloud is your only move really.

swozey 3y ago
They require various clearances (digging into your life and past relationships to a miserable degree), don't allow someone to have ever smoked pot and pay half or less of what you can make in the pvt sector here (usa). Everyone I know working FedRAMP jobs is prior military/g-level.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  They wouldn't need that. And having been SC cleared in the UK, and known a few DV-cleared ones, at least in the UK they don't care if you've smoked pot. They just care that if you have, that you don't mind your family knowing one day. They don't want people who can be blackmailed.
  - swozey 3y ago
    Here it's like this: Don't ever lie to them, "no matter what it is they'll find out." So, some people don't lie, say they smoked pot in high school and none of them make it to the next step. I had a twitter convo last year or pre-x whenever with the CTO of some org I can't remember (I don't think centcom, something much smaller) and he mentioned that they've lightened up quite a bit, or at least his program which was a softwar engineering group was more lenient. He was looking for engineers on via twitter on his official account. So maybe that's loosening up here thankfully.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
justsomehnguy 3y ago
> who will competently do the job for less than 50k, then the cloud is your only move really Well, there is the other way, but, as we know, never ever that would happen.
prmoustache 3y ago
Once your past the emerging startup status, running on the cloud involve as much engineers and complexity as running on prem if you want to follow best practices. The "let's be managed and only hire developers" is a huge myth. All large organizations involve tons of "cloud engineers" or "devops" depending on how they want to call them and are just sysadmins with a different name and a bigger paycheck. Having actual datacenters doesn't add a ton of complexity and datacenters themselves are often managed by people who don't even have an engineer paycheck. The main difference between being on prem vs cloud is you have to plan (how many servers/storage/network equipment you have to buy and replace on the following year) and pay for stuff (like space, racks) more in advance + take into accounts delays in delivery. This is where cloud makes the job much faster for companies but given the slow pace at which gov stuff happen usually I don't think this is a problem for them.
solatic 3y ago
> and not being able to find an engineer Remember it's not just about being able to find one single engineer - then they become key-person risk. You need multiple engineers to be able to handle the loss of that engineer, either temporarily (vacation) or permanently (suddenly hit by a bus). Then you end up having a team of DBAs. Then you have functional rather than feature teams. Then you need multiple managers to align to get anything done, and have internal politics. Being able to consume databases as a product has non-trivial value.

ris 3y ago

GOV.UK PaaS also runs on AWS (for as long as it remains to exist)

okasaki 3y ago

All UK businesses run on Oracle and Microsoft, so I'm not sure why you're surprised. They have us by the balls.

kingkongjaffa 3y ago

> This is an AWS RDS PostgreSQL database and it lives in the PaaS’ AWS account. Our apps that run in the PaaS talk to this database. We are going to call this database our ‘source database’. It already was. Read the article.

conception 3y ago

AWS has a lot of pre-audited compliance built into their services. Being able to inherit their certification for services can save an organization a lot of time and effort.

lnxg33k1 3y ago
Its not an organisation, its a blucking government, it handles citizen data, and its sending them to a company of foreign country, because it can’t hire some system administrators? A GOVERNMENT? What are they doing? Still looking for their product market fit and can’t afford the headcount? Is it a joke? EDIT If they are looking for money id like to participate a bit in the seed round
- kunwon1 3y ago
  AWS has a G-Cloud for UK just like they have one for US, no?
  - snoman 3y ago
    AWS has government specific regions (called GovCloud). Many services or features make it to GovCloud later than other regions because of the certification requirements.
  - travem 3y ago
    AWS has US based GovCloud regions: AWS GovCloud (US-East) and AWS GovCloud (US-West). It does not have a UK specific GovCloud region that I am aware of.
  - bboygravity 3y ago
    Why can't the UK government build there own cloud? It's just completely insane to me that they would make the gov internet infrastructure completely (geopolitically) dependent on another country AND just literally give all their (citizens') data away AND pay for that "privilege"?! I mean if the government can't host the government's websites using tech from the government's country, maybe it would be better to just forget about the whole cyberweb thing altogether? Just turn it off?

otteromkram 3y ago

I'd argue that AWS is much better suited than self-hosting because it's such an important service. Downtime becomes negligible and global reach vastly increases with comparably little cost.

0xbadcafebee 3y ago

That sentence was a little confusing. You're not happy that the government is hiring experts to run an important service?

dtnewman 3y ago
Yes. RDS is a very reasonable choice if you are a tech company, let alone a govt org. The alternative isn’t “let’s host this ourselves” it is “let’s host this with Oracle at a much higher cost”.
- 15457345234 3y ago
  The alternative - at government scale - is absolutely 'let's host this ourselves' and that's what they should be doing, to ensure that institutional expertise remains. They should also own and operate their own datacentres which should be physically secure, not shared with commercial ventures and guarded by the armed forces, not civilian security.
  - 0xbadcafebee 3y ago
    Why doesn't the government manufacture their own cars? They're going to lose institutional expertise in building cars! They should also own and operate their own manufacturing facilities which should be physically secure, not shared with some 'civilian commercial venture'. By golly, the government can't do business if it isn't a datacenter operations company, a software vendor, and a car manufacturer.
    - 15457345234 3y ago
      > By golly, the government can't do business if it isn't a datacenter operations company, a software vendor, and a car manufacturer. I mean, precisely, which is why some countries are rapidly turning into failed states. Too much buck-passing and outsourcing.
- tobias_irmer 3y ago
  It isn't? AWS is crazy expensive and you don't have as much control over things as you may occasionally need. The best decision we took in the past few years with regards to infrastructure was moving away from AWS and doing everything ourselves. On RDS we had inexplicable spikes in cost, deteriorating support and no real support for any of our issues. When we tried using DMS, it just didn't work as expected, even after spending two days on the phone with their support.

pixelesque 3y ago

As other comments point out, their own platform was (at least in terms of DB) already running on AWS, just using a different account.

foofie 3y ago
> As other comments point out, their own platform was (at least in terms of DB) already running on AWS, just using a different account. That changes nothing. It just means this unjustifiable nonsense is going on for a while.

pmcp 3y ago

As somebody who worked for the European Commission, and a european national government, I agree with your sentiment, but the harsh reality is that government divisions in generally work on a shoe string budget, when it comes to decisions like these. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a “best effort given the circumstances” move.

_joel 3y ago

There's an absolute ton of stuff on AWS. There used to be gCloud that allowed for smaller clouds to tender for government contracts bit there was a big pull to AWS, at least from my experience with it.

ivix 3y ago

I'm surprised that you're surprised. Why on earth would government not be migrating to the cloud?

NomDePlum 3y ago

Why? I've worked on a number of UK government projects, including some with particularly sensitive security and data requirements. Having some knowledge of their on-prem data centres and UK Cloud offering they have also used moving to AWS has so many operational, security and resilience benefits that aren't available elsewhere. It's not a free-lunch by any means and needs thought and governance certainly but the procurement simplification benefits alone make going to the public cloud a no brainer for a lot of government services. It is worth knowing that even the on-prem data centres are usually operated by 3rd parties such as HP, BT and IBM. There was an initiative to have "Crown-managed" data-centers but it's not particularly scalable.

overstay8930 3y ago

If you saw how non-tech companies run datacenters, well let's just say they're not exactly working with NATO like the big 3 cloud providers do when designing their DCs and backbone. Honestly you should be frightened when you see someone NOT using a cloud provider, because it is hard work to properly run and secure a datacenter. Even Equinix fucks up HARD regularly and they are considered the gold standard (shout out to those I saw at 350 E Cermak over the weekend).

msla 3y ago

It incentivizes public-private cooperation: If the government cracks down on Amazon, Amazon turns off the government's AWS accounts and deletes the data. The government finds that subpoenaing a wiped hard drive is utterly nugatory, and thereby learns humility.

mobilemidget 3y ago

"The PaaS team offered us the ability to migrate databases using AWS Database Migration Service (DMS)." And I'm not surprised if, they got some kickback, discount etc in some way to promote AWS on their blog. Not claiming its so, but I would not be surprised at all. It reads as one big advertisement.