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> As usual, another great write up by Berthub. It would be great if it would also include links to all those studies showing how $random_company saved tens of

> As usual, another great write up by Berthub. It would be great if it would also include links to all those studies showing how $random_company saved tens of millions by weaning themselves of these "cloud services" and rolling their own. And a mention of the risks of lock in...

alephnerd 2y ago
In aggregate, there aren't that many companies. Cloud costs are higher than DC costs, but you can also hire fewer engineers (who are cost centers if you aren't a tech company) and you don't have to deal with asset depreciation (impacting Capex) so your overall infra spend becomes much less. Looking at technology in isolation is one of those pitfalls I've mentioned in my comment - you need to understand the technical AND business usecase. Sadly, most Europeans who understand both are inevitably poached to become Sales or Solutions Architects for American or Israeli vendors.
- notpushkin 2y ago
  > Cloud costs are higher than DC costs Those aren’t the only options. VPS are a thing, cost less and are pretty easy to operate (even easier than cloud, I’d argue). You can, of course, use cloud services for some stuff (databases? S3?) that are high maintenance, but some things (like the Cognito example from the OP article) just don’t make sense from the point of reducing costs – you trade some complexity for more complexity with a vendor lock-in and some additional costs on top.
- nottorp 2y ago
  > don't have to deal with asset depreciation Rolling your own doesn't mean only building your own data center. It can mean renting beige boxes or even virtual beige boxes without being locked in to the "cloud services". You tend to pay fixed costs for those beige boxes instead of per api call costs that aren't predictable and tend to exponentially compound each other. Edit: and just as a reminder, unless you work at Google or Facebook you won't have their scaling and dynamic resource allocation needs.
notpushkin 2y ago
This exactly. The big clouds do solve some real problems... but they also try to sell you everything as a service and lock you in.

alephnerd 2y ago

In aggregate, there aren't that many companies. Cloud costs are higher than DC costs, but you can also hire fewer engineers (who are cost centers if you aren't a tech company) and you don't have to deal with asset depreciation (impacting Capex) so your overall infra spend becomes much less. Looking at technology in isolation is one of those pitfalls I've mentioned in my comment - you need to understand the technical AND business usecase. Sadly, most Europeans who understand both are inevitably poached to become Sales or Solutions Architects for American or Israeli vendors.

notpushkin 2y ago
> Cloud costs are higher than DC costs Those aren’t the only options. VPS are a thing, cost less and are pretty easy to operate (even easier than cloud, I’d argue). You can, of course, use cloud services for some stuff (databases? S3?) that are high maintenance, but some things (like the Cognito example from the OP article) just don’t make sense from the point of reducing costs – you trade some complexity for more complexity with a vendor lock-in and some additional costs on top.
nottorp 2y ago
> don't have to deal with asset depreciation Rolling your own doesn't mean only building your own data center. It can mean renting beige boxes or even virtual beige boxes without being locked in to the "cloud services". You tend to pay fixed costs for those beige boxes instead of per api call costs that aren't predictable and tend to exponentially compound each other. Edit: and just as a reminder, unless you work at Google or Facebook you won't have their scaling and dynamic resource allocation needs.

notpushkin 2y ago

This exactly. The big clouds do solve some real problems... but they also try to sell you everything as a service and lock you in.