4 ms·

It's not like cloud providers don't have outages either. And for disasters you should always have backups and a migration plan, even if you are in the cloud, no

by vitro 2y ago

It's not like cloud providers don't have outages either. And for disasters you should always have backups and a migration plan, even if you are in the cloud, no? I'm not preaching against cloud, just saying that there are some cases where going bare metal is a better option instead of using cloud by default "because everyone does it".

deafpolygon 2y ago
I'm not arguing for or against cloud, but there are more costs to running bare metal than it would seem. I'm a sysadmin and have run schools on bare metal and on cloud. There are things like drive failures, hardware failures, connectivity issues, networking, user access, and all of those things that are much easier in the cloud. Much easier to spin up or down if you no longer need them. If you're running networked storage, then that needs to have both a fail-over node and backup solution. You probably need to run extra hardware, cabling, etc. Cloud trivializes this. If you're saving 15k in terms of hard cost, but spending 55k/yr for a sysadmin on-prem to maintain, then you're not saving money at all. A disaster can be as simple as a failed disk, or overheated server because you're not a sysadmin and you put the server in a cabinet (I've run into this, dealing with faculty). Dead computer, no lessons for the week - lost time for the school and the professor in question. Every place is different; you have to do a cost analysis and it's not as simple as "I saved 10x!"
- vitro 2y ago
  Just to be clear, I was not talking about on-prem bare metal, but more like hosted bare metal by providers like Hetzner or OVH. Like the guy in the article has. Speaking of drive failures, cables and other hardware failures - provider takes care of that and replaces failed parts.
  - rmbyrro 2y ago
    This is the issue in cloud vs. metal discussions online. All the time I think I'm reading apples and then realize people were talking bananas.
- caeril 2y ago
  > Much easier to spin up or down if you no longer need them. It takes 5 minutes to set up a Docker Swarm Mode cluster. It takes maybe 15 minutes for k3s or microk8s. After that, auto-scaling is dead simple, and no MORE complex than some shitty vendor locked-in cloud solution. > that needs to have both a fail-over node and backup solution ZFS pool replication, Ceph, GlusterFS, etc. Lots of options here. These are long-solved problems. > A disaster can be as simple as a failed disk Right, which is why you design your on-prem cluster with N+2 redundancy in the first place, and with a locked cabinet with spare parts. Cattle not pets, and all that. Do you think your EBS storage never fails? You'd need to do exactly the same thing in the cloud, anyway. > but spending 55k/yr for a sysadmin on-prem to maintain First, if you're paying only 55k for sysadmins, you should be planning to fail anyway. Competence is compensated quite a bit north of there. Second, assuming the context is small business, you're going to have role crossover anyway, it's inevitable - chances are that your developer(s) is(are) administering this. Not every business is Facebook.

by vitro 2y ago

deafpolygon 2y ago

I'm not arguing for or against cloud, but there are more costs to running bare metal than it would seem. I'm a sysadmin and have run schools on bare metal and on cloud. There are things like drive failures, hardware failures, connectivity issues, networking, user access, and all of those things that are much easier in the cloud. Much easier to spin up or down if you no longer need them. If you're running networked storage, then that needs to have both a fail-over node and backup solution. You probably need to run extra hardware, cabling, etc. Cloud trivializes this. If you're saving 15k in terms of hard cost, but spending 55k/yr for a sysadmin on-prem to maintain, then you're not saving money at all. A disaster can be as simple as a failed disk, or overheated server because you're not a sysadmin and you put the server in a cabinet (I've run into this, dealing with faculty). Dead computer, no lessons for the week - lost time for the school and the professor in question. Every place is different; you have to do a cost analysis and it's not as simple as "I saved 10x!"

vitro 2y ago
Just to be clear, I was not talking about on-prem bare metal, but more like hosted bare metal by providers like Hetzner or OVH. Like the guy in the article has. Speaking of drive failures, cables and other hardware failures - provider takes care of that and replaces failed parts.
- rmbyrro 2y ago
  This is the issue in cloud vs. metal discussions online. All the time I think I'm reading apples and then realize people were talking bananas.
caeril 2y ago
> Much easier to spin up or down if you no longer need them. It takes 5 minutes to set up a Docker Swarm Mode cluster. It takes maybe 15 minutes for k3s or microk8s. After that, auto-scaling is dead simple, and no MORE complex than some shitty vendor locked-in cloud solution. > that needs to have both a fail-over node and backup solution ZFS pool replication, Ceph, GlusterFS, etc. Lots of options here. These are long-solved problems. > A disaster can be as simple as a failed disk Right, which is why you design your on-prem cluster with N+2 redundancy in the first place, and with a locked cabinet with spare parts. Cattle not pets, and all that. Do you think your EBS storage never fails? You'd need to do exactly the same thing in the cloud, anyway. > but spending 55k/yr for a sysadmin on-prem to maintain First, if you're paying only 55k for sysadmins, you should be planning to fail anyway. Competence is compensated quite a bit north of there. Second, assuming the context is small business, you're going to have role crossover anyway, it's inevitable - chances are that your developer(s) is(are) administering this. Not every business is Facebook.