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You give up a lot moving to a cloud solution. http://blog.serverfault.com/2011/03/23/performance-tuning-intel-nics/ http://blog.serverfault.com/2011/03/23/perf

You give up a lot moving to a cloud solution. http://blog.serverfault.com/2011/03/23/performance-tuning-intel-nics/ http://blog.serverfault.com/2011/03/23/performance-tuning-in... is my go to "we couldn't do things like this in the cloud" example. Not to say the cloud is never the right choice, it's just never made sense for us.

runarb 14y ago
On the other hand, many are glad they don’t have to handle the performing tuning of NICs them self…
- druiid 14y ago
  But... I also highly doubt most cloud providers are bothering to tune NIC's. They are probably just throwing KVM/Xen up on some standard hardware (whatever is cheapest with highest memory density) and opening the machine up for access. There are going to be parts they tune as a default stack, but that far? I somehow doubt it.
- deleted 14y ago
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druiid 14y ago
Yep, totally agree. There's this great 'OMG THE CLOUD' here on HN, but really as I'm sure you guys did, you have to sit back, actually do a cost-benefit analysis (even if it's two guys on a whiteboard and not a full report) and decide what is best for the way the company/product are structured.
druiid 14y ago
Thanks for posting this. With some new hardware we purchased we'll be doing the same move Broadcom -> Intel, so I think I'll actually be bookmarking this to come back to later!
MichaelGG 14y ago
Really? Last time the subject was mentioned, the StackOverflow people basically said "if you don't buy your own servers then you don't love computers and we love computers so..." - there wasn't an actual cost comparison, maybe I missed it. It seemed to be more just giddiness at buying servers and wiring stuff up. Which seemed odd, seeing as last I heard, SO doesn't even run their own routing. That said, buying servers, especially a gen or two older and refurb, can be a major cost win, so it wouldn't surprise me. Running the actual racks, meh, I'd rather have the colo people handle that unless there's so many racks that it's simply not feasible. For a couple dozen servers, I can't see the point in running it all yourself; it's pretty straightforward plugging stuff in, ain't it?
deleted 14y ago
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Corrado 14y ago
Yes, you do give up a lot for the cloud and your example is a great one. However, those types of problems are fairly rare and can generally be designed around. I think S.O. would be a great service to move off of real hardware. They don't seem to be doing things where dedicated hardware would give you an advantage (big data, video transcoding, 3D graphics, etc.) so why go through the trouble of managing it yourself. Plus, if the system were designed correctly, you get fail-over for "free".

runarb 14y ago

On the other hand, many are glad they don’t have to handle the performing tuning of NICs them self…

druiid 14y ago
But... I also highly doubt most cloud providers are bothering to tune NIC's. They are probably just throwing KVM/Xen up on some standard hardware (whatever is cheapest with highest memory density) and opening the machine up for access. There are going to be parts they tune as a default stack, but that far? I somehow doubt it.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

druiid 14y ago

Yep, totally agree. There's this great 'OMG THE CLOUD' here on HN, but really as I'm sure you guys did, you have to sit back, actually do a cost-benefit analysis (even if it's two guys on a whiteboard and not a full report) and decide what is best for the way the company/product are structured.

druiid 14y ago

Thanks for posting this. With some new hardware we purchased we'll be doing the same move Broadcom -> Intel, so I think I'll actually be bookmarking this to come back to later!

MichaelGG 14y ago

Really? Last time the subject was mentioned, the StackOverflow people basically said "if you don't buy your own servers then you don't love computers and we love computers so..." - there wasn't an actual cost comparison, maybe I missed it. It seemed to be more just giddiness at buying servers and wiring stuff up. Which seemed odd, seeing as last I heard, SO doesn't even run their own routing. That said, buying servers, especially a gen or two older and refurb, can be a major cost win, so it wouldn't surprise me. Running the actual racks, meh, I'd rather have the colo people handle that unless there's so many racks that it's simply not feasible. For a couple dozen servers, I can't see the point in running it all yourself; it's pretty straightforward plugging stuff in, ain't it?

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

Corrado 14y ago

Yes, you do give up a lot for the cloud and your example is a great one. However, those types of problems are fairly rare and can generally be designed around. I think S.O. would be a great service to move off of real hardware. They don't seem to be doing things where dedicated hardware would give you an advantage (big data, video transcoding, 3D graphics, etc.) so why go through the trouble of managing it yourself. Plus, if the system were designed correctly, you get fail-over for "free".