5 ms·

"Migrating from DO/AWS/Linode isn't fun and productive." Huh? You can run more or less the same type of services on Azure that you can on AWS. I wouldn't even c

"Migrating from DO/AWS/Linode isn't fun and productive." Huh? You can run more or less the same type of services on Azure that you can on AWS. I wouldn't even consider DO due to lack of load balancers and file backup services.

vosper 12y ago
Sure, but in practice if you have any complexity in your stack then it's going to be a PITA to from Azure to AWS (or vice-versa). If you're just running instances then maybe it's not too much work - though you're still going to have to think about backup / restore, access control, autoscaling (maybe), cost tracking / allocation, etc... I'm sure Microsoft are banking on a profitable percentage of YC companies becoming so wedded to that Azure systems that the opportunity cost of switching to AWS is too high. Edit: Typo
- mikermcneil 12y ago
  Looks like Azure has a PaaS now though-- I mean it's no heroku, but as far as I can tell it's working.
  - nbevans 12y ago
    Azure was always PaaS... they added IaaS much later.
mbesto 12y ago
Sorry, should have clarified. Most early stage startups don't do DevOps or sysadmin well. Imagine the typical YC startup where its just 2-3 developers who are comfortable with the command line, but not comfortable with Chef, Puppet, etc. Having to plan a migration is not fun or productive for a set of developers because it means (1) less time for them to focus on mobile/web development (2) learning to do sysadmin when it's out of their comfort zone. AWS and Azure are great, but when things get complicated, it means having good resources to help is critical. note - from what I know, most early stage YC companies just use Heroku to solve many of these problems anyway.
- sankethkatta 12y ago
  Azure also has a Heroku-like offering: Azure Websites http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/websites/ http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/websites/
  - mbesto 12y ago
    Whoa! Didn't know about that! Very cool. No ruby support though :/
    - tracker1 12y ago
      Wild... didn't know that. I've been doing mostly node with some C# for the past 3 years... just double checked MS WebMatrix and nope, doesn't look like Ruby is in the box... Been playing with CoreOS though...
    - ghuntley 12y ago
      Ruby works/supported -> http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingRunningRubyOnRailsOnIIS8OrAnythingElseReallyWithTheNewHttpPlatformHandler.aspx http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingRunningRubyOnRailsOn...
  - olifante 12y ago
    Actually Microsoft has not one but two Platform-as-a-Service offerings: - Azure Cloud Services (PaaS) - Azure Websites (PaaS light) Unfortunately, when I last looked at it two months ago, both of them were quite unattractive, at least for Python hosting. First of all, they have no support for automatically installing python dependencies, i.e. no support for pip. If you want to install e.g. django-rest-framework, you have to install it locally and then manually copy the installed files to Azure (with FTP, if I remember correctly). Secondly, they both run Python on a Windows Server running behind the IIS web server. Besides the fact that you will walk along the road less travelled (Django is overwhelmingly deployed on Linux), there is a very concrete limitation: if you want to install binary packages (e.g. PIL or Pillow), you have to manually compile them for Windows (and of course copy them manually to your Azure server). Yuck. If you want to use Azure, go with their IaaS offering (Azure Virtual Machines) and stay away from their PaaS offerings.
maratd 12y ago
> I wouldn't even consider DO due to lack of load balancers and file backup services. You can spin up your own load balancer pretty easily. DO offers backup too. In terms of bang for the buck, you can't really beat DO, unless you're giving your services away for free ...
- proveanegative 12y ago
  >In terms of bang for the buck, you can't really beat DO If you treat DO as just another VPS provider and pay on a monthly basis does it offer advantages over the competition?
- spellboots 12y ago
  I've found this to be very untrue - digital ocean offers very poor performance per $ compared to linode in my experience. Linode don't have a $5/month option but if you pay $10/month or more you will get a lot better performance at Linode
  - StavrosK 12y ago
    Sure, but Linode had a number of breaches. I don't think I could trust my business with them.
    - spellboots 12y ago
      Every provider will have security issues occasionally. Including digital ocean: http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/02/digitalocean-fixes-security-issue-for-its-cloud/ http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/02/digitalocean-fixes-securit...
      - StavrosK 12y ago
        Having data scrubbing disabled by default is different than two breaches that exposed customer data in a short while, though.
        12y ago

vosper 12y ago

Sure, but in practice if you have any complexity in your stack then it's going to be a PITA to from Azure to AWS (or vice-versa). If you're just running instances then maybe it's not too much work - though you're still going to have to think about backup / restore, access control, autoscaling (maybe), cost tracking / allocation, etc... I'm sure Microsoft are banking on a profitable percentage of YC companies becoming so wedded to that Azure systems that the opportunity cost of switching to AWS is too high. Edit: Typo

mikermcneil 12y ago
Looks like Azure has a PaaS now though-- I mean it's no heroku, but as far as I can tell it's working.
- nbevans 12y ago
  Azure was always PaaS... they added IaaS much later.

mbesto 12y ago

Sorry, should have clarified. Most early stage startups don't do DevOps or sysadmin well. Imagine the typical YC startup where its just 2-3 developers who are comfortable with the command line, but not comfortable with Chef, Puppet, etc. Having to plan a migration is not fun or productive for a set of developers because it means (1) less time for them to focus on mobile/web development (2) learning to do sysadmin when it's out of their comfort zone. AWS and Azure are great, but when things get complicated, it means having good resources to help is critical. note - from what I know, most early stage YC companies just use Heroku to solve many of these problems anyway.

sankethkatta 12y ago
Azure also has a Heroku-like offering: Azure Websites http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/websites/ http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/websites/
- mbesto 12y ago
  Whoa! Didn't know about that! Very cool. No ruby support though :/
  - tracker1 12y ago
    Wild... didn't know that. I've been doing mostly node with some C# for the past 3 years... just double checked MS WebMatrix and nope, doesn't look like Ruby is in the box... Been playing with CoreOS though...
  - ghuntley 12y ago
    Ruby works/supported -> http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingRunningRubyOnRailsOnIIS8OrAnythingElseReallyWithTheNewHttpPlatformHandler.aspx http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingRunningRubyOnRailsOn...
- olifante 12y ago
  Actually Microsoft has not one but two Platform-as-a-Service offerings: - Azure Cloud Services (PaaS) - Azure Websites (PaaS light) Unfortunately, when I last looked at it two months ago, both of them were quite unattractive, at least for Python hosting. First of all, they have no support for automatically installing python dependencies, i.e. no support for pip. If you want to install e.g. django-rest-framework, you have to install it locally and then manually copy the installed files to Azure (with FTP, if I remember correctly). Secondly, they both run Python on a Windows Server running behind the IIS web server. Besides the fact that you will walk along the road less travelled (Django is overwhelmingly deployed on Linux), there is a very concrete limitation: if you want to install binary packages (e.g. PIL or Pillow), you have to manually compile them for Windows (and of course copy them manually to your Azure server). Yuck. If you want to use Azure, go with their IaaS offering (Azure Virtual Machines) and stay away from their PaaS offerings.

maratd 12y ago

> I wouldn't even consider DO due to lack of load balancers and file backup services. You can spin up your own load balancer pretty easily. DO offers backup too. In terms of bang for the buck, you can't really beat DO, unless you're giving your services away for free ...

proveanegative 12y ago
>In terms of bang for the buck, you can't really beat DO If you treat DO as just another VPS provider and pay on a monthly basis does it offer advantages over the competition?
spellboots 12y ago
I've found this to be very untrue - digital ocean offers very poor performance per $ compared to linode in my experience. Linode don't have a $5/month option but if you pay $10/month or more you will get a lot better performance at Linode
- StavrosK 12y ago
  Sure, but Linode had a number of breaches. I don't think I could trust my business with them.
  - spellboots 12y ago
    Every provider will have security issues occasionally. Including digital ocean: http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/02/digitalocean-fixes-security-issue-for-its-cloud/ http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/02/digitalocean-fixes-securit...
    - StavrosK 12y ago
      Having data scrubbing disabled by default is different than two breaches that exposed customer data in a short while, though.
      - 12y ago