4 ms·

I wonder if shifting to cloud providers in the EU will lead to the rise of giant European cloud companies in both technology and infrastructure, or if this is j

by m00dy 2y ago

I wonder if shifting to cloud providers in the EU will lead to the rise of giant European cloud companies in both technology and infrastructure, or if this is just a short-term trend.

drstewart 2y ago
There isn't even a short-term trend. We saw posts like this a few years ago (in the blog post even admits he tried this before) and they went nowhere, just like this "movement" will.
- m00dy 2y ago
  I mean, let’s divide it into before and after the Trump era. Will we see the same trend once the new sheriff in town steps down for peace?
  - perks_12 2y ago
    From a tech standpoint, nothing changed with Trump. The NSA had all the backdoors before Trump.
    - m00dy 2y ago
      It's not just about backdoors; on a broader level, we're shifting toward a protectionist economic model, which contrasts sharply with globalism.
  - ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
    Bold of you to assume that the new sheriff in town (or any successors) will ever step down.
    - timeon 2y ago
      From perspective outside of US it is not that relevant (in this context) if there is change after this. Because as we have seen in 2016 and now - there is no stability.
fhd2 2y ago
I'd like that. Personally, I prefer to self host all my stuff. But I can't do that to our clients. I want to provide them with something that makes them independent from us, something they can just hire any random agency or freelancer to work on. That leaves AWS and Azure as strong options. There's a number of European cloud providers (https://www.stackit.de https://www.stackit.de looks especially interesting), but I'm looking for too-big-to-fail options. Hetzner sure is that, but you don't get managed relational databases, object storage and a couple of other things that typical web apps rely on. I know I can host stuff like Postgres and MinIO myself on Hetzner cloud instances. But when it comes to _managed_ services for this stuff, from a too-big-too-fail provider, I'm drawing a blank when it comes to European providers right now.
- startaq 2y ago
  Hetzner supports object storage now: https://www.hetzner.com/storage/object-storage/ https://www.hetzner.com/storage/object-storage/ Or you might consider Scaleway, who also do managed relational databases.
- rrr_oh_man 2y ago
  > I want to provide them with something that makes them independent from us, something they can just hire any random agency or freelancer to work on. I have the same attitude and regularly find (sales) people not understanding why I'm doing this. They are pathologically looking for my angle. But there's none.
  - fhd2 2y ago
    I totally have an angle, I consider our reputation to be our most important asset. There's a lot of devs and agencies out there. It's a whole lot harder to find good _and_ trustworthy ones. Being that is my angle. We got close to 100 % of our business from recommendations, and I like that. Wouldn't really want to spam strangers for finding gigs. Of course, a lot of agencies do just that. And I've also seen more than one situation where an agency held their client hostage, not giving them access to their own code, hosting environment and what not. Sure, it's not 100 % angle. It's also to a large degree professional ethics. But I can easily rationalise it into business value, and am probably not far off.
perks_12 2y ago
There was enough computing demand from Europe before this 'shift' (it's one tech enthusiast here). Large US cloud just opened DCs in Europe. No European cloud provider wanted to step up and provide the level of service US giants offer.
mrweasel 2y ago
Honestly I doubt it. For now, the really big users, companies and large organisations are waiting it out. If they can sort of get by for the next four years, then they aren't going to make the switch, and frankly neither would I.
sylens 2y ago
I think the trend should be away from these cloud providers in general and to smaller companies that offer both a paid service and a self hosted option as a way of providing you with an exit strategy. Ente is a good example of this

by m00dy 2y ago

I wonder if shifting to cloud providers in the EU will lead to the rise of giant European cloud companies in both technology and infrastructure, or if this is just a short-term trend.

drstewart 2y ago

There isn't even a short-term trend. We saw posts like this a few years ago (in the blog post even admits he tried this before) and they went nowhere, just like this "movement" will.

m00dy 2y ago
I mean, let’s divide it into before and after the Trump era. Will we see the same trend once the new sheriff in town steps down for peace?
- perks_12 2y ago
  From a tech standpoint, nothing changed with Trump. The NSA had all the backdoors before Trump.
  - m00dy 2y ago
    It's not just about backdoors; on a broader level, we're shifting toward a protectionist economic model, which contrasts sharply with globalism.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
  Bold of you to assume that the new sheriff in town (or any successors) will ever step down.
  - timeon 2y ago
    From perspective outside of US it is not that relevant (in this context) if there is change after this. Because as we have seen in 2016 and now - there is no stability.

fhd2 2y ago

I'd like that. Personally, I prefer to self host all my stuff. But I can't do that to our clients. I want to provide them with something that makes them independent from us, something they can just hire any random agency or freelancer to work on. That leaves AWS and Azure as strong options. There's a number of European cloud providers (https://www.stackit.de https://www.stackit.de looks especially interesting), but I'm looking for too-big-to-fail options. Hetzner sure is that, but you don't get managed relational databases, object storage and a couple of other things that typical web apps rely on. I know I can host stuff like Postgres and MinIO myself on Hetzner cloud instances. But when it comes to _managed_ services for this stuff, from a too-big-too-fail provider, I'm drawing a blank when it comes to European providers right now.

startaq 2y ago
Hetzner supports object storage now: https://www.hetzner.com/storage/object-storage/ https://www.hetzner.com/storage/object-storage/ Or you might consider Scaleway, who also do managed relational databases.
rrr_oh_man 2y ago
> I want to provide them with something that makes them independent from us, something they can just hire any random agency or freelancer to work on. I have the same attitude and regularly find (sales) people not understanding why I'm doing this. They are pathologically looking for my angle. But there's none.
- fhd2 2y ago
  I totally have an angle, I consider our reputation to be our most important asset. There's a lot of devs and agencies out there. It's a whole lot harder to find good _and_ trustworthy ones. Being that is my angle. We got close to 100 % of our business from recommendations, and I like that. Wouldn't really want to spam strangers for finding gigs. Of course, a lot of agencies do just that. And I've also seen more than one situation where an agency held their client hostage, not giving them access to their own code, hosting environment and what not. Sure, it's not 100 % angle. It's also to a large degree professional ethics. But I can easily rationalise it into business value, and am probably not far off.

perks_12 2y ago

There was enough computing demand from Europe before this 'shift' (it's one tech enthusiast here). Large US cloud just opened DCs in Europe. No European cloud provider wanted to step up and provide the level of service US giants offer.

mrweasel 2y ago

Honestly I doubt it. For now, the really big users, companies and large organisations are waiting it out. If they can sort of get by for the next four years, then they aren't going to make the switch, and frankly neither would I.

sylens 2y ago

I think the trend should be away from these cloud providers in general and to smaller companies that offer both a paid service and a self hosted option as a way of providing you with an exit strategy. Ente is a good example of this