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0 pointsmovedx1y ago0 comments

The biggest issue I see here is the misguided assumption that Cloud is just automatically and unilaterally better than on-premise or professionally managed, hosted hardware. This isn't true in most cases.

There are so many providers, and therefore examples, of physical tin being accessible in under a minute with cost:hardware ratios that blow Cloud out if the sky (pun! ha!) OVH have a server for USD $95/month (with no commitments) that can be brought up and made available 120 _seconds_ that has six 3.8GHz cores, 32GB of RAM, 2x960GB NVMe SSDs, and 1Gbit/s of UNMETERED, guaranteed bandwidth... that's absolutely insane, and that's fully managed from the hardware down, so arguments like, "bUT yoU haVe to MAintAin hardWARE!" are just not true _at all_.

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hmmm-i-wonder1y ago

It was during the wave of "Moving costs from capex to opex give C levels more flexibility" movement after the initial 'cloud is better' wave. In retrospect it seems like another of their badly thought out reactions to a situation they caused by short term thinking, in this case the issues caused by trying to reduce headcount on teams supporting legacy and new physical locations while increasing the pace of new locations.

Those costs were moved and ended up higher than the capex costs were to begin with which everyone expected but the decision makers (they brushed it off every time they were asked in company Q&A's). Opex margins became a major issue and the company did performative layoffs and restructuring to appease the shareholders (then re-hired ~1/3 of the laid off staff within the next 8 months because they actually needed them)

The level of 'bad decision leading to bad decision' happening is somewhere between absurd and depressing at this point.

movedxOP1y ago

Good summary.

I think this all boils down to a knee-jerk reaction culture that doesn't think about the second or third degree consequences and/pr beyond the next 2-3 years.

fireant1y ago

People on HN refuse to see this being an option in these discussions. Is either "cloud" or "build and manage your own physical rack inside a colo housing"

movedxOP1y ago

It's wild to me how hardcoded some of these people are. I think a lot of the younger generation on here might not have experienced the "bare metal days", so they don't know how far you can push the hardware and how much you can squeeze out of it.

Gud1y ago

And frankly, how easy it is.

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0 pointsmovedx1y ago0 comments

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hmmm-i-wonder1y ago

The level of 'bad decision leading to bad decision' happening is somewhere between absurd and depressing at this point.

movedxOP1y ago

Good summary.

I think this all boils down to a knee-jerk reaction culture that doesn't think about the second or third degree consequences and/pr beyond the next 2-3 years.

fireant1y ago

People on HN refuse to see this being an option in these discussions. Is either "cloud" or "build and manage your own physical rack inside a colo housing"

movedxOP1y ago

Gud1y ago

And frankly, how easy it is.

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j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse