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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.
        apelapan 2y ago
        If you are in the cloud, you are going to need a team that understands cloud networking, storage, deployment, security etc. You will need enough people to maintain support rotations and survive normal churn. It seems like many people/organizations belived that they would be rid of the whole "operations problem" once they shifted all their workloads from on-prem to cloud. They believed that they paid a full team for running cables and replacing broken fans/hard drives/PSU:s, when that aspect of on-prem is a tiny (but non-zero) amount of work.
        movedx 2y ago
        I don't believe a lot of this is required. OS level security? So, "apt update && apt upgrade", then? I mean, what else are you doing, writing patches for the kernel? Checking every line of code that runs? Are you aware of how effective SELinux and systemd containers are? Just a simple firewall at the OS level? Maybe even just using Tailscale (or the open source Headscale) to introduce zero trust access capabilities. There's a Terraform provider for Proxmox, which is an excellent hypervisor. Making a template takes less than an hour with configuration. You do need an Ops person for sure, but an entire _team_?

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.
      - apelapan 2y ago
        If you are in the cloud, you are going to need a team that understands cloud networking, storage, deployment, security etc. You will need enough people to maintain support rotations and survive normal churn. It seems like many people/organizations belived that they would be rid of the whole "operations problem" once they shifted all their workloads from on-prem to cloud. They believed that they paid a full team for running cables and replacing broken fans/hard drives/PSU:s, when that aspect of on-prem is a tiny (but non-zero) amount of work.
      - movedx 2y ago
        I don't believe a lot of this is required. OS level security? So, "apt update && apt upgrade", then? I mean, what else are you doing, writing patches for the kernel? Checking every line of code that runs? Are you aware of how effective SELinux and systemd containers are? Just a simple firewall at the OS level? Maybe even just using Tailscale (or the open source Headscale) to introduce zero trust access capabilities. There's a Terraform provider for Proxmox, which is an excellent hypervisor. Making a template takes less than an hour with configuration. You do need an Ops person for sure, but an entire _team_?