5 ms·

In my opinion, Google is ahead of AWS in most aspects besides access control. GCE instances vs. EC2: faster boot times, better network, a far better pricing mod

by hobofan 12y ago

In my opinion, Google is ahead of AWS in most aspects besides access control. GCE instances vs. EC2: faster boot times, better network, a far better pricing model for startups (no upfront cost and year-long lock-in to possibly outdated instance types). Yes, Amazon offers a bigger variety of products, but the newer ones just scream vendor lock-in without much-added benefit. Why would I use Opsworks if Chef or Ansible work just as well?

devy 12y ago
What's the basis of your argument that Google Cloud is better? My personal experience has been exactly the opposite - AWS is light years ahead of Google Cloud. Does Google Cloud provide Machine Learning service? For the longest time, it was only supporting Java and Python SDKs. And the Google's API is still very much lacking in terms of features and stacks. In fact the better support and much comprehensive services presents more choices rather than "vender lock-in". Keep in mind, all the auxiliary services are simply the open source technologies builds on top of AWS EC2 - if you like to spend time and money, you can totally build your own! And this is common, as we've just seen people complain about Google Cloud 4 days ago. https://yourbunnywrote.org/2015/04/19/google-cloud/ https://yourbunnywrote.org/2015/04/19/google-cloud/
- chisleu 12y ago
  Yep. Google hasn't met any of my needs when I play with it. I always end up back on AWS. Lambda is a stunning system IMHO. I do like Google's new DB. It is like an easy to use spark w/ cassandra backend, all behind the scenes. Very nice.
  - tracker1 12y ago
    Lambda looks awesome... I'm tethered to Azure, so the closest I get is Azure App Service which works, but not as elegantly... Dokku-alt is working pretty well (testing now) as a deployment system... was looking kubernetes and the like, but it's overkill for my needs. Doesn't Amazon's mysql api fronted db work similar to google's?
    - chisleu 12y ago
      I'm no expert on that. I thought it was just managed Mysql. The google stuff scales pretty well for startups who are starting to blow up.
      - timoth 12y ago
        Assuming you're both talking about Google Cloud SQL and AWS RDS, then with RDS you can actually choose between MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Oracle, or Amazon Aurora which is supposed to be compatible with MySQL 5.6. Google Cloud SQL only seems to mention MySQL. For scalability, RDS gives you up to 3TB storage (1TB for SQL Server, 64TB for Aurora) and DB instances with up to 244GB RAM, 32 vCPUs and 10Gigabit network, whereas it looks like Google Cloud SQL is 100GB and 16GB of RAM. It looks like Cloud SQL provides managed replication/failover as standard; with AWS this is optional, but simple to set up. (I use RDS; never tried Google Cloud SQL.) (I have no connection with either company, beyond being a customer.)
        tracker1 12y ago
        Amazon RDS for Aurora is what I was thinking of as being similar to Google's Cloud SQL... they're both mySQL API layers over the top of their BigTable/distributed backends.
        chisleu 12y ago
        I was talking about BigQuery.
      - tracker1 12y ago
        I was actually thinking of Amazon RDS for Aurora[1], which seems to be a mySQL api layer over Amazon's BigTable backend. and similar to Google Cloud SQL. [1] http://aws.amazon.com/rds/aurora/ http://aws.amazon.com/rds/aurora/
- hobofan 12y ago
  > Does Google Cloud provide Machine Learning service? Yes they do. [0] > And this is common, as we've just seen people complain about Google Cloud 4 days ago. To me, this is an isolated incident. On the other hand, seemingly every AWS customer of non-trivial size had to reboot a significant part of their machines in the last year because of Xen vulnerabilities (with no way to predict if you will land on a patched machine). [0] https://cloud.google.com/prediction/docs https://cloud.google.com/prediction/docs
  - devy 12y ago
    Ah, great. Apparently I didn't know they do. But again, being first doesn't automatically mean it's better. For instance, Sun's grid computing concept was earlier. > To me, this is an isolated incident. http://www.davidmturner.com/2013/07/26/gce-io-performance-sucks.html http://www.davidmturner.com/2013/07/26/gce-io-performance-su...
    - hobofan 12y ago
      That's a 2 year old blog post from the time when GCE was still in beta. Apart from that, noisy neighbors happen on any cloud platform, and as the author of the article said, those test were far from scientific.
      - devy 12y ago
        http://robusttechhouse.com/google-prediction-api-review/ http://robusttechhouse.com/google-prediction-api-review/ It ranked the worst comparing to AWS and Azure
        hobofan 12y ago
        I never said that they were any good, you just asked if it exists. I personally don't know why one would use any of the GCE/AWS/Azure ML offerings apart for really small use cases (in which case you probably don't have enough data). Most businesses with an ML component (like my startup) need millions of predictions per day which would be crazy expensive on any of those platforms.
- salsakran 12y ago
  https://cloud.google.com/prediction https://cloud.google.com/prediction has been out for years.
- primigenus 12y ago
  > For the longest time, it was only supporting Java and Python SDKs. You are describing Google App Engine circa 2010. I recommend taking another critical look at what Google has available because it's quite competitive these days :)
- miles932 12y ago
  Uhm, yes, yes we do. https://cloud.google.com/prediction/docs https://cloud.google.com/prediction/docs
- lqdc13 12y ago
  Nobody seriously uses AWS ML service, do they? This is the worst idea ever unless it's just to see how well it works, because you have very little control over the algorithms/model parameters.
dorfsmay 12y ago
Why pick google? Choose anything, except maybe object storage, and there is somebody out there who does it better than Amazon, there is also sombody who does it cheaper than Amazon. Except for S3, AWS isn't the best at anything, nor the cheapest, but, they are the only ones doing it all, and typically the ones inovating new services. Nobody has all the services AWS has, or even as well integrated, or as granular etc... If you have very specific needs, then go pick and choose from different vendors (assuming you're ok with multi-site latency), but if you're starting a company and have generic needs that aren't well defined yet, AWS is probably your best bet to start with. People do that, and once their invested so much time in learning the environement, they stick to it.
csears 12y ago
I will agree that Google mostly has higher quality infrastructure, but faster boot times and lower latency networking aren't what most cloud consumers care about. AWS has been diligently moving up the stack, creating higher level services that are "good enough" for many of their customers, who are increasingly enterprises teams who want to outsource as much as possible to Amazon. They can go all-in with AWS and expect a constant stream of new features and services at relatively competitive prices. With Google, their cloud platform still feels non-core to their business and they have a history of retiring services when their priorities change. I hope Google and Microsoft become fully viable alternatives, but for now, enterprises seem more comfortable betting on AWS.

by hobofan 12y ago

devy 12y ago

What's the basis of your argument that Google Cloud is better? My personal experience has been exactly the opposite - AWS is light years ahead of Google Cloud. Does Google Cloud provide Machine Learning service? For the longest time, it was only supporting Java and Python SDKs. And the Google's API is still very much lacking in terms of features and stacks. In fact the better support and much comprehensive services presents more choices rather than "vender lock-in". Keep in mind, all the auxiliary services are simply the open source technologies builds on top of AWS EC2 - if you like to spend time and money, you can totally build your own! And this is common, as we've just seen people complain about Google Cloud 4 days ago. https://yourbunnywrote.org/2015/04/19/google-cloud/ https://yourbunnywrote.org/2015/04/19/google-cloud/

chisleu 12y ago
Yep. Google hasn't met any of my needs when I play with it. I always end up back on AWS. Lambda is a stunning system IMHO. I do like Google's new DB. It is like an easy to use spark w/ cassandra backend, all behind the scenes. Very nice.
- tracker1 12y ago
  Lambda looks awesome... I'm tethered to Azure, so the closest I get is Azure App Service which works, but not as elegantly... Dokku-alt is working pretty well (testing now) as a deployment system... was looking kubernetes and the like, but it's overkill for my needs. Doesn't Amazon's mysql api fronted db work similar to google's?
  - chisleu 12y ago
    I'm no expert on that. I thought it was just managed Mysql. The google stuff scales pretty well for startups who are starting to blow up.
    - timoth 12y ago
      Assuming you're both talking about Google Cloud SQL and AWS RDS, then with RDS you can actually choose between MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Oracle, or Amazon Aurora which is supposed to be compatible with MySQL 5.6. Google Cloud SQL only seems to mention MySQL. For scalability, RDS gives you up to 3TB storage (1TB for SQL Server, 64TB for Aurora) and DB instances with up to 244GB RAM, 32 vCPUs and 10Gigabit network, whereas it looks like Google Cloud SQL is 100GB and 16GB of RAM. It looks like Cloud SQL provides managed replication/failover as standard; with AWS this is optional, but simple to set up. (I use RDS; never tried Google Cloud SQL.) (I have no connection with either company, beyond being a customer.)
      - tracker1 12y ago
        Amazon RDS for Aurora is what I was thinking of as being similar to Google's Cloud SQL... they're both mySQL API layers over the top of their BigTable/distributed backends.
      - chisleu 12y ago
        I was talking about BigQuery.
    - tracker1 12y ago
      I was actually thinking of Amazon RDS for Aurora[1], which seems to be a mySQL api layer over Amazon's BigTable backend. and similar to Google Cloud SQL. [1] http://aws.amazon.com/rds/aurora/ http://aws.amazon.com/rds/aurora/
hobofan 12y ago
> Does Google Cloud provide Machine Learning service? Yes they do. [0] > And this is common, as we've just seen people complain about Google Cloud 4 days ago. To me, this is an isolated incident. On the other hand, seemingly every AWS customer of non-trivial size had to reboot a significant part of their machines in the last year because of Xen vulnerabilities (with no way to predict if you will land on a patched machine). [0] https://cloud.google.com/prediction/docs https://cloud.google.com/prediction/docs
- devy 12y ago
  Ah, great. Apparently I didn't know they do. But again, being first doesn't automatically mean it's better. For instance, Sun's grid computing concept was earlier. > To me, this is an isolated incident. http://www.davidmturner.com/2013/07/26/gce-io-performance-sucks.html http://www.davidmturner.com/2013/07/26/gce-io-performance-su...
  - hobofan 12y ago
    That's a 2 year old blog post from the time when GCE was still in beta. Apart from that, noisy neighbors happen on any cloud platform, and as the author of the article said, those test were far from scientific.
    - devy 12y ago
      http://robusttechhouse.com/google-prediction-api-review/ http://robusttechhouse.com/google-prediction-api-review/ It ranked the worst comparing to AWS and Azure
      - hobofan 12y ago
        I never said that they were any good, you just asked if it exists. I personally don't know why one would use any of the GCE/AWS/Azure ML offerings apart for really small use cases (in which case you probably don't have enough data). Most businesses with an ML component (like my startup) need millions of predictions per day which would be crazy expensive on any of those platforms.
salsakran 12y ago
https://cloud.google.com/prediction https://cloud.google.com/prediction has been out for years.
primigenus 12y ago
> For the longest time, it was only supporting Java and Python SDKs. You are describing Google App Engine circa 2010. I recommend taking another critical look at what Google has available because it's quite competitive these days :)
miles932 12y ago
Uhm, yes, yes we do. https://cloud.google.com/prediction/docs https://cloud.google.com/prediction/docs
lqdc13 12y ago
Nobody seriously uses AWS ML service, do they? This is the worst idea ever unless it's just to see how well it works, because you have very little control over the algorithms/model parameters.

dorfsmay 12y ago

Why pick google? Choose anything, except maybe object storage, and there is somebody out there who does it better than Amazon, there is also sombody who does it cheaper than Amazon. Except for S3, AWS isn't the best at anything, nor the cheapest, but, they are the only ones doing it all, and typically the ones inovating new services. Nobody has all the services AWS has, or even as well integrated, or as granular etc... If you have very specific needs, then go pick and choose from different vendors (assuming you're ok with multi-site latency), but if you're starting a company and have generic needs that aren't well defined yet, AWS is probably your best bet to start with. People do that, and once their invested so much time in learning the environement, they stick to it.

csears 12y ago

I will agree that Google mostly has higher quality infrastructure, but faster boot times and lower latency networking aren't what most cloud consumers care about. AWS has been diligently moving up the stack, creating higher level services that are "good enough" for many of their customers, who are increasingly enterprises teams who want to outsource as much as possible to Amazon. They can go all-in with AWS and expect a constant stream of new features and services at relatively competitive prices. With Google, their cloud platform still feels non-core to their business and they have a history of retiring services when their priorities change. I hope Google and Microsoft become fully viable alternatives, but for now, enterprises seem more comfortable betting on AWS.