4 ms·

Completely different domains and polar opposites on levels of technical requirement. Etsy is an end user web application (don't get me wrong, it's a great serv

Completely different domains and polar opposites on levels of technical requirement. Etsy is an end user web application (don't get me wrong, it's a great service). AWS is pretty much the pioneer in IaaS. I'd say Amazon (AWS) built the system so folks like Etsy wouldn't have to build as much as a system.

burkemw3 11y ago
When I read callahad's comment, I thought it was referring to Amazon as a "CRUD-based storefront website". What would you say about the retail Amazon store compared to Etsy?
- giaour 11y ago
  Well, Amazon also had to define what it meant to be a web store at scale. I think that mpdehaan2's point was that (from the outside looking in, at least) almost everything Etsy's doing seems to be a minor variation on a solved problem. That was definitely not the case for Amazon.
krschultz 11y ago
That's getting the causality backwards. AWS exists because Amazon had so many engineers working on these problems it made sense to generalize it as a separate product. It wasn't like Amazon didn't have a lot of engineers but decided to build AWS so then hired a bunch of engineers.
stephenr 11y ago
Well technically, Amazon built AWS so they could make money from other companies who can't, or don't want to, run their own infrastructure. At the scale of Etsy, they don't get any benefit from AWS - they're certainly big enough to justify the cost of an operations team, at which point AWS is just an expensive exercise in vendor-lockin. It really surprises me how many people think that being more self-reliant and understanding/controlling more of your dependencies, is a bad thing. It's not always possible, but why wouldn't you, if you had the resources to do so? The only time I got close to an answer on stuff like this was when I asked why the company behind a large tv/broadcast network insisted on using "vendors" for every little piece of technology - they would pay for hosted forums and battle through the issues with integration (of which there were many) rather than picking up an existing forum product and customising it as necessary. The only answer I was ever given: they want someone to sue when it goes to shit.
- giaour 11y ago
  There are significant benefits to using AWS or a similar service, even when handling traffics loads large enough to justify the investment in bare metal. For starters, you can scale your infrastructure up and down as needed.
  - stephenr 11y ago
    At the scale where you run your own dc you can save just as much by owning the hardware and using smart virtualisation to put unused physical resources into standby/low power mode. Amazon didn't invent virtual infrastructure that adjusts dynamically based on load.
- devonkim 11y ago
  I will give you another answer: I cannot hire developer talent with the company name & sexiness / vision with budget to attract and build a team that would be needed to build the software in-house. This is typical for most enterprises that really aren't in the software business as a legit line of business. So it's pretty much only possible to just pay a vendor and deal with all the BS of having to learn another party's software while having the downsides of procurement and politics in big companies. The throat to choke argument is not sufficient anymore for a lot of enterprises though because they are sick of their vendors giving poor results or ones not aligned to their own goals in the product lines. I haven't exactly heard of anyone getting actually sued, but you can make a little money back sometimes if a vendor doesn't meet their SLA. I started advocating mostly open source solutions partly because using vendors is like taking drugs and eventually they'll start dictating your architecture rather than you pick your architecture, which is likely to conflict with a competing vendor's architecture. All of this talking and demoing is also costly, but these type of evaluators are fairly easy to find compared to talented / competent developers. But really, companies that already have solid lines of business that can only grow a bit are far more concerned about loss of revenue than trying to grow n% faster in most parts of the company.

burkemw3 11y ago

When I read callahad's comment, I thought it was referring to Amazon as a "CRUD-based storefront website". What would you say about the retail Amazon store compared to Etsy?

giaour 11y ago
Well, Amazon also had to define what it meant to be a web store at scale. I think that mpdehaan2's point was that (from the outside looking in, at least) almost everything Etsy's doing seems to be a minor variation on a solved problem. That was definitely not the case for Amazon.

krschultz 11y ago

That's getting the causality backwards. AWS exists because Amazon had so many engineers working on these problems it made sense to generalize it as a separate product. It wasn't like Amazon didn't have a lot of engineers but decided to build AWS so then hired a bunch of engineers.

stephenr 11y ago

Well technically, Amazon built AWS so they could make money from other companies who can't, or don't want to, run their own infrastructure. At the scale of Etsy, they don't get any benefit from AWS - they're certainly big enough to justify the cost of an operations team, at which point AWS is just an expensive exercise in vendor-lockin. It really surprises me how many people think that being more self-reliant and understanding/controlling more of your dependencies, is a bad thing. It's not always possible, but why wouldn't you, if you had the resources to do so? The only time I got close to an answer on stuff like this was when I asked why the company behind a large tv/broadcast network insisted on using "vendors" for every little piece of technology - they would pay for hosted forums and battle through the issues with integration (of which there were many) rather than picking up an existing forum product and customising it as necessary. The only answer I was ever given: they want someone to sue when it goes to shit.

giaour 11y ago
There are significant benefits to using AWS or a similar service, even when handling traffics loads large enough to justify the investment in bare metal. For starters, you can scale your infrastructure up and down as needed.
- stephenr 11y ago
  At the scale where you run your own dc you can save just as much by owning the hardware and using smart virtualisation to put unused physical resources into standby/low power mode. Amazon didn't invent virtual infrastructure that adjusts dynamically based on load.
devonkim 11y ago
I will give you another answer: I cannot hire developer talent with the company name & sexiness / vision with budget to attract and build a team that would be needed to build the software in-house. This is typical for most enterprises that really aren't in the software business as a legit line of business. So it's pretty much only possible to just pay a vendor and deal with all the BS of having to learn another party's software while having the downsides of procurement and politics in big companies. The throat to choke argument is not sufficient anymore for a lot of enterprises though because they are sick of their vendors giving poor results or ones not aligned to their own goals in the product lines. I haven't exactly heard of anyone getting actually sued, but you can make a little money back sometimes if a vendor doesn't meet their SLA. I started advocating mostly open source solutions partly because using vendors is like taking drugs and eventually they'll start dictating your architecture rather than you pick your architecture, which is likely to conflict with a competing vendor's architecture. All of this talking and demoing is also costly, but these type of evaluators are fairly easy to find compared to talented / competent developers. But really, companies that already have solid lines of business that can only grow a bit are far more concerned about loss of revenue than trying to grow n% faster in most parts of the company.