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The biggest issue I see here is the misguided assumption that Cloud is just automatically and unilaterally better than on-premise or professionally managed, hos

by movedx 2y ago

The biggest issue I see here is the misguided assumption that Cloud is just automatically and unilaterally better than on-premise or professionally managed, hosted hardware. This isn't true in most cases. There are so many providers, and therefore examples, of physical tin being accessible in under a minute with cost:hardware ratios that blow Cloud out if the sky (pun! ha!) OVH have a server for USD $95/month (with no commitments) that can be brought up and made available 120 _seconds_ that has six 3.8GHz cores, 32GB of RAM, 2x960GB NVMe SSDs, and 1Gbit/s of UNMETERED, guaranteed bandwidth... that's absolutely insane, and that's fully managed from the hardware down, so arguments like, "bUT yoU haVe to MAintAin hardWARE!" are just not true _at all_.

fireant 2y ago
People on HN refuse to see this being an option in these discussions. Is either "cloud" or "build and manage your own physical rack inside a colo housing"
- movedx 2y ago
  It's wild to me how hardcoded some of these people are. I think a lot of the younger generation on here might not have experienced the "bare metal days", so they don't know how far you can push the hardware and how much you can squeeze out of it.
  - Gud 2y ago
    And frankly, how easy it is.
    - movedx 2y ago
      Precisely. Operating systems aren’t hard. They’re so easy and well established it’s crazy not to use them directly, and even though I’m not the world’s biggest Docker fan, Compose is kind of awesome to be honest. Deploying software and maintaining and OS is simple in this day and age.
      - hmmm-i-wonder 2y ago
        Having gone from managing several thousand physical to virtual/cloud instances, there are certainly major differences and the company has to structure its approach accordingly (IMO). On premise in my opinion needs a dedicated team managing hardware and leverage solutions to provide that as VM's/Containers/etc to teams. Another team focused on OS level security and base image, then your dev teams can effectively focus on their app and leverage the automated tools provided by the hardware and OS teams. Cloud gives you at least half of that, or all of it depending on your approach, for a cost. There are points where the cost makes sense and times when it doesn't, and typically that changes through the life of a company. Unfortunately there is a not insignificant overhead even with current tools to maintaining a truly substrate agnostic infrastructure that can be deployed on top of multiple clouds, on-premise etc... so companies are locked in even when economics change.
        antonvs 2y ago
        > On premise in my opinion needs a dedicated team managing hardware and leverage solutions to provide that as VM's/Containers/etc to teams. Another team focused on OS level security and base image, then your dev teams can effectively focus on their app and leverage the automated tools provided by the hardware and OS teams. Exactly. At which point, you’re essentially reinventing a cloud, usually not very well. If you have access to really good people you can pull this off, and that’s why you see so many people on HN doing the “who needs cloud” flex. But the reality is that for most companies, managing non-trivial amounts of hardware is not a core competency, and they regularly shoot themselves in the foot by trying it.
        hmmm-i-wonder 2y ago
        Absolutely. My issue is really on the other end of that scale, where getting C-suites to recognize when owning that core competency is actually beneficial to the company even if its not the focus of the company. I grew up around companies leveraging vertical integration at the right scales to improve costs, seeing companies go the opposite direction trading all those advantages for often never-materializing benefits is... frustrating.
hmmm-i-wonder 2y ago
It was during the wave of "Moving costs from capex to opex give C levels more flexibility" movement after the initial 'cloud is better' wave. In retrospect it seems like another of their badly thought out reactions to a situation they caused by short term thinking, in this case the issues caused by trying to reduce headcount on teams supporting legacy and new physical locations while increasing the pace of new locations. Those costs were moved and ended up higher than the capex costs were to begin with which everyone expected but the decision makers (they brushed it off every time they were asked in company Q&A's). Opex margins became a major issue and the company did performative layoffs and restructuring to appease the shareholders (then re-hired ~1/3 of the laid off staff within the next 8 months because they actually needed them) The level of 'bad decision leading to bad decision' happening is somewhere between absurd and depressing at this point.
- movedx 2y ago
  Good summary. I think this all boils down to a knee-jerk reaction culture that doesn't think about the second or third degree consequences and/pr beyond the next 2-3 years.

by movedx 2y ago

fireant 2y ago

People on HN refuse to see this being an option in these discussions. Is either "cloud" or "build and manage your own physical rack inside a colo housing"

movedx 2y ago
It's wild to me how hardcoded some of these people are. I think a lot of the younger generation on here might not have experienced the "bare metal days", so they don't know how far you can push the hardware and how much you can squeeze out of it.
- Gud 2y ago
  And frankly, how easy it is.
  - movedx 2y ago
    Precisely. Operating systems aren’t hard. They’re so easy and well established it’s crazy not to use them directly, and even though I’m not the world’s biggest Docker fan, Compose is kind of awesome to be honest. Deploying software and maintaining and OS is simple in this day and age.
    - hmmm-i-wonder 2y ago
      Having gone from managing several thousand physical to virtual/cloud instances, there are certainly major differences and the company has to structure its approach accordingly (IMO). On premise in my opinion needs a dedicated team managing hardware and leverage solutions to provide that as VM's/Containers/etc to teams. Another team focused on OS level security and base image, then your dev teams can effectively focus on their app and leverage the automated tools provided by the hardware and OS teams. Cloud gives you at least half of that, or all of it depending on your approach, for a cost. There are points where the cost makes sense and times when it doesn't, and typically that changes through the life of a company. Unfortunately there is a not insignificant overhead even with current tools to maintaining a truly substrate agnostic infrastructure that can be deployed on top of multiple clouds, on-premise etc... so companies are locked in even when economics change.
      - antonvs 2y ago
        > On premise in my opinion needs a dedicated team managing hardware and leverage solutions to provide that as VM's/Containers/etc to teams. Another team focused on OS level security and base image, then your dev teams can effectively focus on their app and leverage the automated tools provided by the hardware and OS teams. Exactly. At which point, you’re essentially reinventing a cloud, usually not very well. If you have access to really good people you can pull this off, and that’s why you see so many people on HN doing the “who needs cloud” flex. But the reality is that for most companies, managing non-trivial amounts of hardware is not a core competency, and they regularly shoot themselves in the foot by trying it.
        hmmm-i-wonder 2y ago
        Absolutely. My issue is really on the other end of that scale, where getting C-suites to recognize when owning that core competency is actually beneficial to the company even if its not the focus of the company. I grew up around companies leveraging vertical integration at the right scales to improve costs, seeing companies go the opposite direction trading all those advantages for often never-materializing benefits is... frustrating.

hmmm-i-wonder 2y ago

It was during the wave of "Moving costs from capex to opex give C levels more flexibility" movement after the initial 'cloud is better' wave. In retrospect it seems like another of their badly thought out reactions to a situation they caused by short term thinking, in this case the issues caused by trying to reduce headcount on teams supporting legacy and new physical locations while increasing the pace of new locations. Those costs were moved and ended up higher than the capex costs were to begin with which everyone expected but the decision makers (they brushed it off every time they were asked in company Q&A's). Opex margins became a major issue and the company did performative layoffs and restructuring to appease the shareholders (then re-hired ~1/3 of the laid off staff within the next 8 months because they actually needed them) The level of 'bad decision leading to bad decision' happening is somewhere between absurd and depressing at this point.

movedx 2y ago
Good summary. I think this all boils down to a knee-jerk reaction culture that doesn't think about the second or third degree consequences and/pr beyond the next 2-3 years.