6 ms·

What are the alternatives. Like, really. I get it: Hetzner and OVH exist. But what are the alternatives to AWS, GCP, Azure?

guappa 3y ago
openstack
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  okay
- LunaSea 3y ago
  No. OpenStack sucks to deploy and maintain with the result being an inferior cloud with a lack in services.
  - guappa 3y ago
    The goal is not "superior", the goal is "USA can't kill our infrastructure pressing one button"
    - LunaSea 3y ago
      The goal is also to have a usable cloud on which you can efficiently develop software. Otherwise we can simply go back to paper.
      - prmoustache 3y ago
        The initial premise is wrong for a start. You don't need a cloud to efficiently develop software. I've worked in companies that were running kubernetes on prem. It was a PITA for kubernetes ops but from a developer perspective it wasn't much different than using the cloud in a large company. Cloud is very flexible for very small orgs that have little processes but once you get into a certain size with lots of processes, privileges separations and nomenclatures, it becomes so bureaucratic all flexibility of a cloud mostly disappear.
        LunaSea 3y ago
        > You don't need a cloud to efficiently develop software. I've worked in companies that were running kubernetes on prem. It was a PITA for kubernetes ops but from a developer perspective it wasn't much different than using the cloud in a large company. EC2 servers and Kubernetes are a very small part of what is necessary to run complex applications. > Cloud is very flexible for very small orgs that have little processes but once you get into a certain size with lots of processes, privileges separations and nomenclatures, it becomes so bureaucratic all flexibility of a cloud mostly disappear. That will be the same in any large company. Friends working at banks have to make formal requests for new versions of Python that months to be accepted. If anything, clouds can be much more flexible thanks to tools like CDK which bare-metal or OpenStack don't offer.
        prmoustache 3y ago
        >Friends working at banks have to make formal requests for new versions of Python that months to be accepted. And I have been asked by my manager to help a different team and I am still waiting 10 days later to get access to the necessary AWS account. These kinds of problems are organizational, not technical. Thinking cloud solutions solve organizational issues magically is naive and delusional.
        LunaSea 3y ago
        > These kinds of problems are organizational, not technical. Thinking cloud solutions solve organizational issues magically is naive and delusional. We actually agree on this point. Using OpenStack is actually not a silver bullet and won't solve this problem. This is an organisational problem. So my point still stands that OpenStack is lacking in services and is not fit for complex applications if you do not want to reinvent the wheel every day.
Stranger43 3y ago
As someone who split his time 50/50 between AWS and vmware based instances, i cant really think of anything we run in AWS that is not eventually supposed to go back on prem when we have stabilized the specification and lifecycle expectations. And who could not have gone in on prem if we had been willing to spend capex upfront(which would likely had led to lower lifecycle costs). The last time this debate came along ms was able to sweep in with an solution that did not require cloud integration with an price/support package that was by all estimate at bellow cost, and i would be surprised if the state in question have anything in the cloud that MS did not use to offer as on-prem solutions, and im pretty sure the current wintel/mso solution is based around those on-prem implementation of AD and SharePoint that no longer exists and viable alternatives to opensource based document storage repositories.
- nine_k 3y ago
  > i cant really think of anything we run in AWS that is not eventually supposed to go back on prem Hod do you handle multi-DC, multi-AZ resilience? What are you using instead of IAM policies that cover every resource? (Asking unironically, would just like to know. I worked at cloud-centric companies for last 15 years or so.)
  - Stranger43 3y ago
    For AWS we rely almost entirely on backup/restore and database level log shipping on prem this is is in some cases argumented by storage level(netapp and previously hpe 3par) replication but this is going away for cost reasons. Given that my experience with AWS is to use the same application level cross region resilience techniques im used to on prem(i have worked with high end unix boxen most of my carear) im genuinely baffled when people start talking about cloud resilience as something magical, and nearly all our traffic happens inside of an private network(MPLS/VPN) that stretches across the different sites. I really haven't seen any magic multi-az resiliiance in aws that dont have an onprem counter part. None of this is in house whitebox hardware but relatively standard solutions from established vendors(VMware recently started abusing their near monopoly so everyone is looking for/at alternatives like proxmox, xen and nutanix but arent ready to move just yet).
wkat4242 3y ago
Scaleway is a great alternative to AWS. A lot cheaper too! And API compatible.
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  Thanks, looks interesting.
ffgjgf1 3y ago
I guess MS could just find a way to guarantee that any data is only stored in data centers in Europe. It shouldn’t be too complicated and I don’t see how could they be considered to be a foreign cloud then.
- dividedbyzero 3y ago
  Can the US government still force them to violate that guarantee? If yes, then they're a foreign cloud.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    But then that would apply to every company that has datacenters and provides services both in US and Europe?
    - CRConrad 3y ago
      I don't think so. The US government could kill Microsoft; no European government could. The EU / some European government could kill a European company; the US couldn't.

guappa 3y ago

openstack

rad_gruchalski 3y ago
okay
LunaSea 3y ago
No. OpenStack sucks to deploy and maintain with the result being an inferior cloud with a lack in services.
- guappa 3y ago
  The goal is not "superior", the goal is "USA can't kill our infrastructure pressing one button"
  - LunaSea 3y ago
    The goal is also to have a usable cloud on which you can efficiently develop software. Otherwise we can simply go back to paper.
    - prmoustache 3y ago
      The initial premise is wrong for a start. You don't need a cloud to efficiently develop software. I've worked in companies that were running kubernetes on prem. It was a PITA for kubernetes ops but from a developer perspective it wasn't much different than using the cloud in a large company. Cloud is very flexible for very small orgs that have little processes but once you get into a certain size with lots of processes, privileges separations and nomenclatures, it becomes so bureaucratic all flexibility of a cloud mostly disappear.
      - LunaSea 3y ago
        > You don't need a cloud to efficiently develop software. I've worked in companies that were running kubernetes on prem. It was a PITA for kubernetes ops but from a developer perspective it wasn't much different than using the cloud in a large company. EC2 servers and Kubernetes are a very small part of what is necessary to run complex applications. > Cloud is very flexible for very small orgs that have little processes but once you get into a certain size with lots of processes, privileges separations and nomenclatures, it becomes so bureaucratic all flexibility of a cloud mostly disappear. That will be the same in any large company. Friends working at banks have to make formal requests for new versions of Python that months to be accepted. If anything, clouds can be much more flexible thanks to tools like CDK which bare-metal or OpenStack don't offer.
        prmoustache 3y ago
        >Friends working at banks have to make formal requests for new versions of Python that months to be accepted. And I have been asked by my manager to help a different team and I am still waiting 10 days later to get access to the necessary AWS account. These kinds of problems are organizational, not technical. Thinking cloud solutions solve organizational issues magically is naive and delusional.
        LunaSea 3y ago
        > These kinds of problems are organizational, not technical. Thinking cloud solutions solve organizational issues magically is naive and delusional. We actually agree on this point. Using OpenStack is actually not a silver bullet and won't solve this problem. This is an organisational problem. So my point still stands that OpenStack is lacking in services and is not fit for complex applications if you do not want to reinvent the wheel every day.

Stranger43 3y ago

As someone who split his time 50/50 between AWS and vmware based instances, i cant really think of anything we run in AWS that is not eventually supposed to go back on prem when we have stabilized the specification and lifecycle expectations. And who could not have gone in on prem if we had been willing to spend capex upfront(which would likely had led to lower lifecycle costs). The last time this debate came along ms was able to sweep in with an solution that did not require cloud integration with an price/support package that was by all estimate at bellow cost, and i would be surprised if the state in question have anything in the cloud that MS did not use to offer as on-prem solutions, and im pretty sure the current wintel/mso solution is based around those on-prem implementation of AD and SharePoint that no longer exists and viable alternatives to opensource based document storage repositories.

nine_k 3y ago
> i cant really think of anything we run in AWS that is not eventually supposed to go back on prem Hod do you handle multi-DC, multi-AZ resilience? What are you using instead of IAM policies that cover every resource? (Asking unironically, would just like to know. I worked at cloud-centric companies for last 15 years or so.)
- Stranger43 3y ago
  For AWS we rely almost entirely on backup/restore and database level log shipping on prem this is is in some cases argumented by storage level(netapp and previously hpe 3par) replication but this is going away for cost reasons. Given that my experience with AWS is to use the same application level cross region resilience techniques im used to on prem(i have worked with high end unix boxen most of my carear) im genuinely baffled when people start talking about cloud resilience as something magical, and nearly all our traffic happens inside of an private network(MPLS/VPN) that stretches across the different sites. I really haven't seen any magic multi-az resiliiance in aws that dont have an onprem counter part. None of this is in house whitebox hardware but relatively standard solutions from established vendors(VMware recently started abusing their near monopoly so everyone is looking for/at alternatives like proxmox, xen and nutanix but arent ready to move just yet).

wkat4242 3y ago

Scaleway is a great alternative to AWS. A lot cheaper too! And API compatible.

rad_gruchalski 3y ago
Thanks, looks interesting.

ffgjgf1 3y ago

I guess MS could just find a way to guarantee that any data is only stored in data centers in Europe. It shouldn’t be too complicated and I don’t see how could they be considered to be a foreign cloud then.

dividedbyzero 3y ago
Can the US government still force them to violate that guarantee? If yes, then they're a foreign cloud.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  But then that would apply to every company that has datacenters and provides services both in US and Europe?
  - CRConrad 3y ago
    I don't think so. The US government could kill Microsoft; no European government could. The EU / some European government could kill a European company; the US couldn't.