If you need a server, AWS is much more expensive over said server's lifetime. I think cloud is great for auto scaling from zero to billions of requests if you

If you need a server, AWS is much more expensive over said server's lifetime. I think cloud is great for auto scaling from zero to billions of requests if you go full orchestration, but if you're running a stable operation where a box just runs 24/7 you will make back only the hardware cost in just a few months. Even with management AWS is much more expensive (and that needs to be managed too) I think there's a point to cloud but picking up boxes and moving them to AWS, basically moving traditional equipment into cloud without actually transforming it to a cloud service, isn't it. You're just paying too much for someone else's computer without taking advantage of the special added value. Which just happens to be exactly what my work is doing. We don't even take advantage of automated management like ansible, it's a joke really. The only reason is that we can say 'We're a cloud outfit' and some bookkeeping tricks moving capex to opex. But we burn much more money this way and have less control.