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Love it! We are unfortunately moving away from self-hosted bare metal. I disagree with the transition to AWS. But it's been made several global layers above me

Love it! We are unfortunately moving away from self-hosted bare metal. I disagree with the transition to AWS. But it's been made several global layers above me. It's funny our previous AWS spend was $800 per month and has been for almost 6 years. We've just migrated some of our things to AWS and the spend is around $4,500 per month. I've been told the company doesn't care until our monthly is in excessive of five figures. None of this makes sense to me. The only thing that makes sense is our parent company is _huge_ and we have some really awesome TAMs and our entire AWS spend is probably in the region of a few million a month, so it really is pennies behind the sofa when global org is concerned.

Sammi 1y ago
I read some many stories like this and every time I think of the "your margins are my opportunity" quote, and think there must be so many inefficient enterprises that are ripe for disruption by a small efficient team.
Terretta 1y ago
There are many other costs besides that AWS bill. Naming two it's hard to put a number on, but get discussed at board room or senior exec level: - client confidence - labor pool
- aunty_helen 1y ago
  And to add to that second one, ability to bring in a third party contractor to reduce headcount when needed.
cube00 1y ago
> None of this makes sense to me. OpEx good, CapEx bad.
- marcosdumay 1y ago
  What could make sense if the OP was talking about a less than 30% difference. What country is it that applies a 400% income tax to companies? (Well, seriously, it makes sense in a larger than 80% tax rate. Not that impossibly high, but I doubt any country ever had it.)
- 1a527dd5 1y ago
  Now you mention it, the other thing we are being forced to do is categorise our work (e.g. commits/PRs) as Cap/Op. And then once a year a bunch of us are randomly selected by one of the big four auditing companies to talk about why that piece of work was Cap/Op.
milch 1y ago
If your parent company spend is millions, your 4.5k is probably "free" anyway in credits, discounts, reserved capacity, or whatever

Sammi 1y ago

I read some many stories like this and every time I think of the "your margins are my opportunity" quote, and think there must be so many inefficient enterprises that are ripe for disruption by a small efficient team.

Terretta 1y ago

There are many other costs besides that AWS bill. Naming two it's hard to put a number on, but get discussed at board room or senior exec level: - client confidence - labor pool

aunty_helen 1y ago
And to add to that second one, ability to bring in a third party contractor to reduce headcount when needed.

cube00 1y ago

> None of this makes sense to me. OpEx good, CapEx bad.

marcosdumay 1y ago
What could make sense if the OP was talking about a less than 30% difference. What country is it that applies a 400% income tax to companies? (Well, seriously, it makes sense in a larger than 80% tax rate. Not that impossibly high, but I doubt any country ever had it.)
1a527dd5 1y ago
Now you mention it, the other thing we are being forced to do is categorise our work (e.g. commits/PRs) as Cap/Op. And then once a year a bunch of us are randomly selected by one of the big four auditing companies to talk about why that piece of work was Cap/Op.

milch 1y ago

If your parent company spend is millions, your 4.5k is probably "free" anyway in credits, discounts, reserved capacity, or whatever