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The problem though is that if there is even a chance a service will be shut down (with a year's notice or otherwise) then on a financial basis alone, the cost s

The problem though is that if there is even a chance a service will be shut down (with a year's notice or otherwise) then on a financial basis alone, the cost savings up to that point will be drowned out by the switching cost. I agree entirely with @bcantrill's comment. I look at Google's PaaS services with the very real concern that they may be switched off or changed at any time. The reality of this is not just that it will have a financial cost but may well deal a mortal blow to the business. Unless Google makes a long term implicit (big customer) or explicit (rock solid 5-year SLA) commitment to these services they're just too risky to build a complex business on (unless it's a business which is enabled by the marginal cost savings).

dragonwriter 13y ago
> I think the point is though that if there is even a chance that a service will be shut down in a year then even on a financial basis, the cost savings up to that point will be drowned out by the switching cost. There is always a chance that a service will be shut down in a year no matter who the provider is.
- domdip 13y ago
  And when that chance is perceived to be particularly high at Google people will act accordingly. Even if you think it's equal, we're probably in a regime of "nobody got fired for building on AWS".
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    AWS DevOps here (besides my many other jobs titles/responsibilities). When was the last time AWS EOL'd a service? Honestly, I can't remember, and I've been using AWS (S3/EC2 to start) since 2007. GAE, storage, etc could be close to free, and I'll still stick with Amazon; I'm paying for consistency and the long-term lifecycle of AWS as a system.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > When was the last time AWS EOL'd a service? When was the last time Google Cloud Platform EOL'd a service? I mean, if you are asking about AWS and not Amazon, you should ask about Google Cloud Platform, and not Google.
    - donavanm 13y ago
      Amazon has deprecated & disabled old API versions, SOAP & security issues and the like. I think they removed some of the old SimpleDB eventually consistent Query calls & made strongly consistent Select. Some of the regional API implementation around S3 and the original "us-standard" region were changed. But yeah, AWS has never turned off a service or major feature that I canrecall.
larrys 13y ago
"rock solid 5-year SLA" File that with "will always be free we promise". Just so you know there is no such thing as "rock solid" with respect to legal contracts. There is always wiggle or weasel room. Better predictor is past behavior (which is what everyone is discusssing). Not only that but a company like google has the finances to take any kind of legal action hit if they do decide to go against the contract even w/o a leg to stand on. And a band of users and a class action won't stop the process. [1] Even Apple has in the past killed products (clones, xserve, newton for example). I remember specifically that a close friend told me that "they will never kill xserve" he was a big rep in sales and had tons of business in that area. Yet they killed it. Oh yeah mobileme also. I know I'm forgetting many other things. While it's not unusual that companies kill products or services and there is never an explicit guarantee there are definitely companies that are more likely to do so if the product doesn't meet certain goals or fit in. [1] Re-read this part. In other words promise one thing, do another thing, then simply clean up the resulting mess.
bshanks 13y ago
i filed an issue awhile ago asking for a longer deprecation period. https://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/detail?id=9767 https://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/detail?id=9...
res0nat0r 13y ago
Sorry but I have to disagree with this and the above. There is a fundamental difference in the Google Cloud platform which caters to (paying!) customers and has (paid!) support vs. a playground free service for end users like Google Reader. The "meh" of GCE so far has really just been that it is behind the times vs. AWS kicking out new features monthly and is years late to the game. When they keep adding features to their ecosystem (and driving down prices like the crazy cheap $0.02/GB cost of storage vs $0.68/GB for S3) usage will keep increasing. I haven't had or heard of a single customer not choosing GCE because they are worried it is just going away, it is just lack of an ecosystem and knowledge/awareness from the end-user that these Google services are something worth looking at.
- ericd 13y ago
  Well, here you go. I would never choose GCE, because I'd be worried about it going away, or Google increasing the price by some absurd amount with little warning and no feedback period, making my initial assumptions untenable, and leaving me to do a massive rewrite due to lockin on their proprietary features. Google did this with Maps (before backing off, perhaps due to backlash), and has done this with GAE in the past. Trust is a fragile thing, and hard to rebuild.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> I think the point is though that if there is even a chance that a service will be shut down in a year then even on a financial basis, the cost savings up to that point will be drowned out by the switching cost. There is always a chance that a service will be shut down in a year no matter who the provider is.

domdip 13y ago
And when that chance is perceived to be particularly high at Google people will act accordingly. Even if you think it's equal, we're probably in a regime of "nobody got fired for building on AWS".
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  AWS DevOps here (besides my many other jobs titles/responsibilities). When was the last time AWS EOL'd a service? Honestly, I can't remember, and I've been using AWS (S3/EC2 to start) since 2007. GAE, storage, etc could be close to free, and I'll still stick with Amazon; I'm paying for consistency and the long-term lifecycle of AWS as a system.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > When was the last time AWS EOL'd a service? When was the last time Google Cloud Platform EOL'd a service? I mean, if you are asking about AWS and not Amazon, you should ask about Google Cloud Platform, and not Google.
  - donavanm 13y ago
    Amazon has deprecated & disabled old API versions, SOAP & security issues and the like. I think they removed some of the old SimpleDB eventually consistent Query calls & made strongly consistent Select. Some of the regional API implementation around S3 and the original "us-standard" region were changed. But yeah, AWS has never turned off a service or major feature that I canrecall.

larrys 13y ago

"rock solid 5-year SLA" File that with "will always be free we promise". Just so you know there is no such thing as "rock solid" with respect to legal contracts. There is always wiggle or weasel room. Better predictor is past behavior (which is what everyone is discusssing). Not only that but a company like google has the finances to take any kind of legal action hit if they do decide to go against the contract even w/o a leg to stand on. And a band of users and a class action won't stop the process. [1] Even Apple has in the past killed products (clones, xserve, newton for example). I remember specifically that a close friend told me that "they will never kill xserve" he was a big rep in sales and had tons of business in that area. Yet they killed it. Oh yeah mobileme also. I know I'm forgetting many other things. While it's not unusual that companies kill products or services and there is never an explicit guarantee there are definitely companies that are more likely to do so if the product doesn't meet certain goals or fit in. [1] Re-read this part. In other words promise one thing, do another thing, then simply clean up the resulting mess.

bshanks 13y ago

i filed an issue awhile ago asking for a longer deprecation period. https://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/detail?id=9767 https://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/detail?id=9...

res0nat0r 13y ago

Sorry but I have to disagree with this and the above. There is a fundamental difference in the Google Cloud platform which caters to (paying!) customers and has (paid!) support vs. a playground free service for end users like Google Reader. The "meh" of GCE so far has really just been that it is behind the times vs. AWS kicking out new features monthly and is years late to the game. When they keep adding features to their ecosystem (and driving down prices like the crazy cheap $0.02/GB cost of storage vs $0.68/GB for S3) usage will keep increasing. I haven't had or heard of a single customer not choosing GCE because they are worried it is just going away, it is just lack of an ecosystem and knowledge/awareness from the end-user that these Google services are something worth looking at.

ericd 13y ago
Well, here you go. I would never choose GCE, because I'd be worried about it going away, or Google increasing the price by some absurd amount with little warning and no feedback period, making my initial assumptions untenable, and leaving me to do a massive rewrite due to lockin on their proprietary features. Google did this with Maps (before backing off, perhaps due to backlash), and has done this with GAE in the past. Trust is a fragile thing, and hard to rebuild.