5 ms·

Our big belief is that elastic infrastructure (that is, cloud computing) should be orthogonal to the economic model (that is, own versus rent). Today, that is

Our big belief is that elastic infrastructure (that is, cloud computing) should be orthogonal to the economic model (that is, own versus rent). Today, that is not the case: if you want cloud computing, you more or less have to rent it. But we know that there are many who wish (or need) to run cloud computing but on an owned asset. There are many factors that deter that today, not least the odious per-core licensing that we highlight here. (For a particular brazen example of this, see VMware's infamous "AMD tax" ca. 2020.[0]) [0] https://news.vmware.com/company/cpu-pricing-model-update-feb-2020 https://news.vmware.com/company/cpu-pricing-model-update-feb...

ghaff 3y ago
I actually find it interesting how many things we (which, in part, I mean I) got wrong about cloud computing early on. Various other things too.
dsizzle 3y ago
Why aren't there prices on the website? (Seems weird that there isn't given that blog post, where costs are pretty central.)
- steveklabnik 3y ago
  (not Bryan, not actively part of the decision to put prices on the website or not, just my own take.) Different audiences have different expectations. In the place we are, that is, enterprise sales, the expectation is not that you can go to a website, get a price, and click a button. The expectation is that the two organizations will communicate over a period of time ("the sales cycle") to work through everything that goes into a deal, and eventually come to an agreement or not. This includes so many variables that putting the price on the website wouldn't make sense, as you're never going to end up at that exact price. I used to find this attitude frustrating, as an engineer, but the longer I have been a professional, and worked at various organizations, the more I come around to that being a good thing, not a bad thing.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    All I really want to know is "ballpark" - are we talking four, five, ten figures? I feel bad burning salesman time for a solution that is way out of our range, but I can't learn that until after a meeting or two.
    - steveklabnik 3y ago
      I hear you, but I can assure you that this comes with the territory for sales people. Qualifying leads is part of the job.
    - wmf 3y ago
      It's between a half million and a million.
    - cryptonector 3y ago
      Oxide is offering you radically different -better- terms. The price they mean to charge will almost be based around what they need to a) fund more development, b) grow, and probably also relate to what their competition charge. The actual price you would actually negotiate surely depends on other factors, like how badly you want those better terms. If the better terms aren't enough to make you talk to them about pricing, then Oxide surely isn't for you.
  - dsizzle 3y ago
    If the price isn't listed, I always take it as a sign that nobody is buying it for price reasons ("if you have to ask, you can't afford it"). Outside of the blog, I don't even see a claim that it's cheaper so that's consistent.
    - steveklabnik 3y ago
      That is understandable, but you would be mistaken. That quote (which may not even have been said by J.P. Morgan) is talking about luxury consumer goods, which is a completely different market than business to business sales.
School-Cotton 3y ago
> Our big belief is that elastic infrastructure (that is, cloud computing) should be orthogonal to the economic model (that is, own versus rent). I’m probably missing something obvious, so take this as a genuine question rather than an attempt to debate, but why aren’t they fundamentally connected? If you sometimes need 10 servers and sometimes need 100 (elasticity) then with renting you can always have the proper number. If you own, then you have to own all 100 servers.
- steveklabnik 3y ago
  (not Bryan) > why aren’t they fundamentally connected? They are connected in the sense that capacity planning is always a thing. But that doesn't mean that the ownership model is inextricably tied to the deployment model, which is how I personally say instead of "elastic infrastructure." "I am making an HTTP call to request a new VM" is very different than "file a ticket with IT to procure me a new server, install it in the data center, and then send me the keys." The slogan "pets vs cattle" is an advanced form of this change in thinking. In some sense, it is hard to own your hardware yet treat your servers like cattle. You basically have four basic options: * deploy elastic, rent your hardware: this is the default today for many startups * deploy to hardware directly, buy your hardware: this is the Old Times * deploy elastic, buy your hardware: this is Oxide * deploy to hardware, rent your hardware: this is a thing, though not nearly as popular as the other three (I call them basic because hybrid is a thing: you can own usual capacity and then rent more for bursts, or as a fallback, etc) Now, Oxide is not the only game in town when it comes to "deploy elastic, buy your hardware": this is what many IT departments do. You could, for example, buy some servers, toss OpenStack on there. Oxide's thesis is that doing this is less than ideal, and we can make it significantly better. In fact, it is so suboptimal that many people choose "deploy elastic, rent your hardware" because it is so much easier. And now we're back to Bryan's statement. Does that makes sense?
  - School-Cotton 3y ago
    It does make sense, thanks.
- cross 3y ago

ghaff 3y ago

I actually find it interesting how many things we (which, in part, I mean I) got wrong about cloud computing early on. Various other things too.

dsizzle 3y ago

Why aren't there prices on the website? (Seems weird that there isn't given that blog post, where costs are pretty central.)

steveklabnik 3y ago
(not Bryan, not actively part of the decision to put prices on the website or not, just my own take.) Different audiences have different expectations. In the place we are, that is, enterprise sales, the expectation is not that you can go to a website, get a price, and click a button. The expectation is that the two organizations will communicate over a period of time ("the sales cycle") to work through everything that goes into a deal, and eventually come to an agreement or not. This includes so many variables that putting the price on the website wouldn't make sense, as you're never going to end up at that exact price. I used to find this attitude frustrating, as an engineer, but the longer I have been a professional, and worked at various organizations, the more I come around to that being a good thing, not a bad thing.
- bombcar 3y ago
  All I really want to know is "ballpark" - are we talking four, five, ten figures? I feel bad burning salesman time for a solution that is way out of our range, but I can't learn that until after a meeting or two.
  - steveklabnik 3y ago
    I hear you, but I can assure you that this comes with the territory for sales people. Qualifying leads is part of the job.
  - wmf 3y ago
    It's between a half million and a million.
  - cryptonector 3y ago
    Oxide is offering you radically different -better- terms. The price they mean to charge will almost be based around what they need to a) fund more development, b) grow, and probably also relate to what their competition charge. The actual price you would actually negotiate surely depends on other factors, like how badly you want those better terms. If the better terms aren't enough to make you talk to them about pricing, then Oxide surely isn't for you.
- dsizzle 3y ago
  If the price isn't listed, I always take it as a sign that nobody is buying it for price reasons ("if you have to ask, you can't afford it"). Outside of the blog, I don't even see a claim that it's cheaper so that's consistent.
  - steveklabnik 3y ago
    That is understandable, but you would be mistaken. That quote (which may not even have been said by J.P. Morgan) is talking about luxury consumer goods, which is a completely different market than business to business sales.

School-Cotton 3y ago

> Our big belief is that elastic infrastructure (that is, cloud computing) should be orthogonal to the economic model (that is, own versus rent). I’m probably missing something obvious, so take this as a genuine question rather than an attempt to debate, but why aren’t they fundamentally connected? If you sometimes need 10 servers and sometimes need 100 (elasticity) then with renting you can always have the proper number. If you own, then you have to own all 100 servers.

steveklabnik 3y ago
(not Bryan) > why aren’t they fundamentally connected? They are connected in the sense that capacity planning is always a thing. But that doesn't mean that the ownership model is inextricably tied to the deployment model, which is how I personally say instead of "elastic infrastructure." "I am making an HTTP call to request a new VM" is very different than "file a ticket with IT to procure me a new server, install it in the data center, and then send me the keys." The slogan "pets vs cattle" is an advanced form of this change in thinking. In some sense, it is hard to own your hardware yet treat your servers like cattle. You basically have four basic options: * deploy elastic, rent your hardware: this is the default today for many startups * deploy to hardware directly, buy your hardware: this is the Old Times * deploy elastic, buy your hardware: this is Oxide * deploy to hardware, rent your hardware: this is a thing, though not nearly as popular as the other three (I call them basic because hybrid is a thing: you can own usual capacity and then rent more for bursts, or as a fallback, etc) Now, Oxide is not the only game in town when it comes to "deploy elastic, buy your hardware": this is what many IT departments do. You could, for example, buy some servers, toss OpenStack on there. Oxide's thesis is that doing this is less than ideal, and we can make it significantly better. In fact, it is so suboptimal that many people choose "deploy elastic, rent your hardware" because it is so much easier. And now we're back to Bryan's statement. Does that makes sense?
- School-Cotton 3y ago
  It does make sense, thanks.
cross 3y ago