8 ms·

We already have excellent cloud providers in Europe. But most importantly, most businesses using the cloud would be better off with simple on-prem solutions. So

by bambax 9mo ago

We already have excellent cloud providers in Europe. But most importantly, most businesses using the cloud would be better off with simple on-prem solutions. So much cheaper to operate and control.

jeffrallen 9mo ago
Right, but have you tried recruiting someone recently who is capable of running a pair of local servers (including organizing redundant power feeds), upgrading the OS on them with no downtime, and arranging for off-site backups of the enterpris's data? These used to be the skills of a generalist sysadmin for a small-site with on-prem services. Those skills are no longer available on the market. Students in the local apprenticeship program have one class about hardware, and they don't even touch it, just talk about it.
- Nextgrid 9mo ago
  Offer just half of the typical AWS cloud bill and you'll magically have lots of candidates! But greed often doesn't let companies pay any more than "market rate" even if it means paying twice that to AWS or a vendor instead.
- gtech1 9mo ago
  Just hired a 45yo who excels and loves and thrives doing this stuff. Proxmox, local storage, local backups + offsite backups. 1Pb of data, colocation costs are 5k/month. Guess AWS costs for similar
9dev 9mo ago
> So much cheaper to operate and control. Until you factor in the salaries of the new employees you have to hire now, the cost of that hiring process, the compliance and security implications of operating servers on your premises, the ongoing maintenance of the software and operating systems, the new infrastructure to maintain, including but not limited to backup power supply and overall redundancy, the need to manage the lifecycle of the new hard- and software, the documentation for all of this… I could go on for a while. It's not like these cloud solutions are just solving laziness.
- Black616Angel 9mo ago
  But you can rent on-prem servers in some datacenter near you where all that is done for you.
  - hsuduebc2 9mo ago
    Do not forget that it is also cheaper. Main difference would be scalability which you do not inherently need. Not for ordinary bau.
  - 9dev 9mo ago
    First off, servers on someone else's premises are by definition not on-prem; and second, it still leaves you with a lot of the maintenance, management, and documentation overhead that comes with operating infrastructure equipment.
- no_op 9mo ago
  A lot of this could be standardized and packaged into a product, a modern take on the 'server appliance.' Unpack some gear, plug it together according to a nice diagram, connect to a management console that feels familiar to anyone who's deployed to the cloud.
  - 9dev 9mo ago
    That's essentially the bet of https://oxide.computer https://oxide.computer
    - newsclues 9mo ago
      Yeah, this seems like a big opportunity for that business model.
- belorn 9mo ago
  Listened to a story about a fairly large company that switched to cloud and then back to on-premise. When they went cloud they quickly found out that they needed employees to manage the cloud infrastructure. The employee costs were similar for both setup. Compliance and security testing does not go away just because you use cloud. The steps and questions will be different, but regulations like NIS and GDPR have extensive requirements regardless if you implement it yourself or buy it from an external supplier. I would also not recommend to go with a single cloud solution with no backup solution and overall redundancy, unless a $5 voucher is good enough compensation for the service being down a whole day. The general recommendation after the latest waves of outages was for cloud users to use multiple cloud providers and multiple backup solution. It is just like how on-premise solutions need off-premise backups.
hsuduebc2 9mo ago
Exactly. People used to think that aws is somehow convenient(partially true) and much cheaper which it absolutely isn't. Hooking on anything trendy and pretending it solve all the issues is tech illness. For example micro services. You do not need infrastructure heavy software paradigms for large majority of use cases but it was just blindly accepted as new standart which we are now, again, moving away.
lucasRW 9mo ago
They are not European. They are French, or Swiss, or Scandinavian, each of those countries who may sooner or later not align anymore with your strategic interests. Countries should only trust themselves for sensitive stuff.
- gf000 9mo ago
  I mean, the Euro-zone is way more interconnected than that..
- adrianN 9mo ago
  Why stop at countries? /s
smarx007 9mo ago
Most European "cloud" providers sell "wood": https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/dear-hosting-providers-you-sell-lumber-and-not-furniture/ https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/dear-hosting-providers-you...
- wiether 9mo ago
  Thanks for the link! I'm not sure it will convince the "haters" nor they'll get it, but I'll keep it close to share with some people that are confused but open enough to understand the nuance.
ExoticPearTree 9mo ago
> We already have excellent cloud providers in Europe. Please provide a list, no sarcasm. And please don’t put Hetzner on it, as it is not a cloud provider.
- arter45 9mo ago
  Ok, I'll bite. Why is it not a cloud provider? Most importantly, what is a cloud provider in your definition?
  - smarx007 9mo ago
    https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/dear-hosting-providers-you-sell-lumber-and-not-furniture/ https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/dear-hosting-providers-you...
    - arter45 9mo ago
      Not sure I follow. It's one thing to say that a lot of AWS/Azure/Google users take advantage of many managed services. But saying something is not a cloud provider because they don't provide a specific SaaS is kinda weird, especially if you read the NIST definition of cloud computing or when you consider that not every AWS user is using more than a handful of services (does that make AWS a cloud provider only for more "advanced" users?). Sure, smaller cloud providers don't usually have all those services, but this doesn't mean they are not cloud providers. They cannot attract users who are more familiar with specific managed services, but they can probably satisfy the needs of other users who are more than happy with a smaller feature set. Also, limiting yourself to a smaller portion of AWS/Azure/GCP services can facilitate migrations to other cloud platforms (think AWS -> Azure or viceversa), because you're less tied to specific proprietary tooling.
      - smarx007 9mo ago
        > because they don't provide a specific SaaS is kinda weird I think for most business stakeholders it's not about the number of services but rather the coverage of business-critical needs. When you have access to Azure Entra, you know that you can cover 90%+ of your auth needs with that service. If you have access to AWS S3, you know that your various storage needs would be possible to cover with that. If a managed Postgres is available, you know that most of the IT systems you run would be able to take advantage of that. You look at Azure their IAM/audit/observability offerings and it's the same. When you look at Hetzner as a business stakeholder, all you see are bare servers and and one object storage service that you are not sure of how battle-tested it is. And then you start thinking: "okay, I will need to run k8s or some other workload orchestration approach, my IT systems need Postgres/MySQL/SQL Server etc, I need auth, I need audit, I will need to build, operate, maintain all of that in-house". I am not saying that this is a wrong path for everyone, but Hetzner essentially leaves you no choice. And many business stakeholders who have been operating their own own-prem infra or colocated or rented IaaS plus a large dev team for decades and have since switched to one of the hyperscalers and reduced their dev/IT headcount - may not want to go back to the old model. > limiting yourself to a smaller portion of AWS/Azure/GCP services can facilitate migrations to other cloud platforms. Yes, which is why you insist (where possible/reasonable) on Postgres-compatible DBMS offerings, IdP solutions based on OIDC, observability on OpenTelemetry. > Sure, smaller cloud providers don't usually have all those services, but this doesn't mean they are not cloud providers Yes, it could mean that they are not cloud providers. > but they can probably satisfy the needs of other users who are more than happy with a smaller feature set Please see the linked article. This is essentially "users who are happy to build some of the furniture themselves".
nxm 9mo ago
No, most wouldn’t. Too much risk and overhead for most companies to do so… most companies should and do just focus on the business value they add, rather than the underlying physical infra

by bambax 9mo ago

We already have excellent cloud providers in Europe. But most importantly, most businesses using the cloud would be better off with simple on-prem solutions. So much cheaper to operate and control.

jeffrallen 9mo ago

Right, but have you tried recruiting someone recently who is capable of running a pair of local servers (including organizing redundant power feeds), upgrading the OS on them with no downtime, and arranging for off-site backups of the enterpris's data? These used to be the skills of a generalist sysadmin for a small-site with on-prem services. Those skills are no longer available on the market. Students in the local apprenticeship program have one class about hardware, and they don't even touch it, just talk about it.

Nextgrid 9mo ago
Offer just half of the typical AWS cloud bill and you'll magically have lots of candidates! But greed often doesn't let companies pay any more than "market rate" even if it means paying twice that to AWS or a vendor instead.
gtech1 9mo ago
Just hired a 45yo who excels and loves and thrives doing this stuff. Proxmox, local storage, local backups + offsite backups. 1Pb of data, colocation costs are 5k/month. Guess AWS costs for similar

9dev 9mo ago

> So much cheaper to operate and control. Until you factor in the salaries of the new employees you have to hire now, the cost of that hiring process, the compliance and security implications of operating servers on your premises, the ongoing maintenance of the software and operating systems, the new infrastructure to maintain, including but not limited to backup power supply and overall redundancy, the need to manage the lifecycle of the new hard- and software, the documentation for all of this… I could go on for a while. It's not like these cloud solutions are just solving laziness.

Black616Angel 9mo ago
But you can rent on-prem servers in some datacenter near you where all that is done for you.
- hsuduebc2 9mo ago
  Do not forget that it is also cheaper. Main difference would be scalability which you do not inherently need. Not for ordinary bau.
- 9dev 9mo ago
  First off, servers on someone else's premises are by definition not on-prem; and second, it still leaves you with a lot of the maintenance, management, and documentation overhead that comes with operating infrastructure equipment.
no_op 9mo ago
A lot of this could be standardized and packaged into a product, a modern take on the 'server appliance.' Unpack some gear, plug it together according to a nice diagram, connect to a management console that feels familiar to anyone who's deployed to the cloud.
- 9dev 9mo ago
  That's essentially the bet of https://oxide.computer https://oxide.computer
  - newsclues 9mo ago
    Yeah, this seems like a big opportunity for that business model.
belorn 9mo ago
Listened to a story about a fairly large company that switched to cloud and then back to on-premise. When they went cloud they quickly found out that they needed employees to manage the cloud infrastructure. The employee costs were similar for both setup. Compliance and security testing does not go away just because you use cloud. The steps and questions will be different, but regulations like NIS and GDPR have extensive requirements regardless if you implement it yourself or buy it from an external supplier. I would also not recommend to go with a single cloud solution with no backup solution and overall redundancy, unless a $5 voucher is good enough compensation for the service being down a whole day. The general recommendation after the latest waves of outages was for cloud users to use multiple cloud providers and multiple backup solution. It is just like how on-premise solutions need off-premise backups.

hsuduebc2 9mo ago

Exactly. People used to think that aws is somehow convenient(partially true) and much cheaper which it absolutely isn't. Hooking on anything trendy and pretending it solve all the issues is tech illness. For example micro services. You do not need infrastructure heavy software paradigms for large majority of use cases but it was just blindly accepted as new standart which we are now, again, moving away.

lucasRW 9mo ago

They are not European. They are French, or Swiss, or Scandinavian, each of those countries who may sooner or later not align anymore with your strategic interests. Countries should only trust themselves for sensitive stuff.

gf000 9mo ago
I mean, the Euro-zone is way more interconnected than that..
adrianN 9mo ago
Why stop at countries? /s

smarx007 9mo ago

Most European "cloud" providers sell "wood": https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/dear-hosting-providers-you-sell-lumber-and-not-furniture/ https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/dear-hosting-providers-you...

wiether 9mo ago
Thanks for the link! I'm not sure it will convince the "haters" nor they'll get it, but I'll keep it close to share with some people that are confused but open enough to understand the nuance.

ExoticPearTree 9mo ago

> We already have excellent cloud providers in Europe. Please provide a list, no sarcasm. And please don’t put Hetzner on it, as it is not a cloud provider.

arter45 9mo ago
Ok, I'll bite. Why is it not a cloud provider? Most importantly, what is a cloud provider in your definition?
- smarx007 9mo ago
  https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/dear-hosting-providers-you-sell-lumber-and-not-furniture/ https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/dear-hosting-providers-you...
  - arter45 9mo ago
    Not sure I follow. It's one thing to say that a lot of AWS/Azure/Google users take advantage of many managed services. But saying something is not a cloud provider because they don't provide a specific SaaS is kinda weird, especially if you read the NIST definition of cloud computing or when you consider that not every AWS user is using more than a handful of services (does that make AWS a cloud provider only for more "advanced" users?). Sure, smaller cloud providers don't usually have all those services, but this doesn't mean they are not cloud providers. They cannot attract users who are more familiar with specific managed services, but they can probably satisfy the needs of other users who are more than happy with a smaller feature set. Also, limiting yourself to a smaller portion of AWS/Azure/GCP services can facilitate migrations to other cloud platforms (think AWS -> Azure or viceversa), because you're less tied to specific proprietary tooling.
    - smarx007 9mo ago
      > because they don't provide a specific SaaS is kinda weird I think for most business stakeholders it's not about the number of services but rather the coverage of business-critical needs. When you have access to Azure Entra, you know that you can cover 90%+ of your auth needs with that service. If you have access to AWS S3, you know that your various storage needs would be possible to cover with that. If a managed Postgres is available, you know that most of the IT systems you run would be able to take advantage of that. You look at Azure their IAM/audit/observability offerings and it's the same. When you look at Hetzner as a business stakeholder, all you see are bare servers and and one object storage service that you are not sure of how battle-tested it is. And then you start thinking: "okay, I will need to run k8s or some other workload orchestration approach, my IT systems need Postgres/MySQL/SQL Server etc, I need auth, I need audit, I will need to build, operate, maintain all of that in-house". I am not saying that this is a wrong path for everyone, but Hetzner essentially leaves you no choice. And many business stakeholders who have been operating their own own-prem infra or colocated or rented IaaS plus a large dev team for decades and have since switched to one of the hyperscalers and reduced their dev/IT headcount - may not want to go back to the old model. > limiting yourself to a smaller portion of AWS/Azure/GCP services can facilitate migrations to other cloud platforms. Yes, which is why you insist (where possible/reasonable) on Postgres-compatible DBMS offerings, IdP solutions based on OIDC, observability on OpenTelemetry. > Sure, smaller cloud providers don't usually have all those services, but this doesn't mean they are not cloud providers Yes, it could mean that they are not cloud providers. > but they can probably satisfy the needs of other users who are more than happy with a smaller feature set Please see the linked article. This is essentially "users who are happy to build some of the furniture themselves".

nxm 9mo ago

No, most wouldn’t. Too much risk and overhead for most companies to do so… most companies should and do just focus on the business value they add, rather than the underlying physical infra