I'm the only engineer working on backend, so I pay $0 per year to configure, manage and monitor machines. Startups don't have cash to hire systems engineers.
In my startup I'm an engineer, not a "systems engineer" or "software engineer" or "bathroom cleaner engineer". If people can build code complex code, why they can't build scripts to automate the cloud configuration? Most people have those already built from past jobs anyway. It seems that you are taking a defensive position from a strict engineer perspective. For a startup to succeed, you might find yourself doing tasks from cleaning bathrooms, sys admin, community management among other things. Paying more now so you don't get fired in the future might not be the best option for a startup. cheers, rafa On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 5:24 AM, Jim <jeb62...@gmail.com> wrote: > Rafa, > > You are correct that I have a lot of large corporate experience, working > for good sized commercial software houses. That's where I had the pleasure > of building these sorts of highly available, scalable, secure, etc > platforms from the ground up to host products my teams built. That's why I > know how hard, time consuming and expensive it can be to build something > that begins to approach what GAE offers. > > But I have also worked in two start-ups. One early in my career and now > for the past three years running my own. We're using GAE now and I would > not consider it 'expensive' because we do want and need the things that it > offers. I don't want to build on generic LAMP stack and be at the mercy of > a handful of machines in a rented data center and have to pay a couple of > systems engineers when I could pay application developers instead who are > going to bring new functionality to my products. To me, new functionality > equals value...systems engineering is something I want to outsource to > Google. It's something they've proven themselves to be incredibly good at. > We're a very lean startup and I want ALL of our resources focused either > directly on our Customers or directly on software functionality that will > directly benefit our Customers. To me, anything else is extraneous and > will be outsourced to somebody who can do it better. In Austin, TX I can't > even begin to hire a single really good systems engineer for what I'm > paying Google, and with our business model even when we're blowing out our > revenue projections we won't even be close then. > > But then that's me, our requirements, and our application profile. > > I'm not insulted, I'm just try to stimulate a more meaningful conversation > than blanket statements that don't take into account all of the real > factors involved in such a complex decision. By the way, you never > answered my questions about what your engineers cost and how that impacts > your capital issues. I have a hard time believing the time/value your > engineering staff spends setting up, configuring, managing and monitoring > machines doesn't exceed $48,000 per year. > > Is geographically dispersed essential? Well yeah, if you believe, like I > do, that you engineer things right from the beginning. I've been building > large, complex software products for a LONG time and I've found that it's > very hard to come back and "fix" or "re-do" things after the momentum gets > going. Once things get rolling there will always be many competing demands > and telling the CEO that you've got to put the brakes on the product > roadmap for six months so you can migrate to a different stack/data-center > can be a career-shortening conversation. If you believe your customers > will demand a solution that is engineered for scalability and resiliency > and fault-tolerance, then running in distributed data centers is essential. > Maybe not back in the 1970's, but in this century and decade anyway. > > Jim > > > > On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 4:33:38 PM UTC-6, Rafael Sanches wrote: > >> Jim, >> >> It seems you're talking from a point of view of a big corporation. Since >> snapchat didn't had big funding since short time ago, I was supposed we're >> talking about startups. Big corporations are another beast where server >> costs are irrelevant in it's sea of other useless costs and lazy people. >> >> I am talking from the point of view of a startup that struggles with cash >> flow and find itself obligated to raise capital just to pay server costs. >> >> I don't know why some people think I am insulting their family when I say >> that appengine is very expensive for high traffic apps. Can you give me an >> example where it's not expensive? I am giving my own because I've built >> high traffic services for appengine, aws, hetzner, rackspace etc. >> >> Is geographically dispersed services an essential feature for a startup? >> It's simple till you complicate it. >> >> thanks >> rafa >> >> >> On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 1:50 PM, Jim <jeb6...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Yes, I'm quite aware of the various cloud stacks out there and have >>> worked on projects using several of them including AWS and CloudStack. >>> Glad to see you're moving away from your $50 a month claim and it's now at >>> 10 X $50 a month. Now let's talk about geographically dispersed services >>> with automated fail-over. Then let's talk about what that good engineer >>> you have costs you. You really want to run your business on a platform >>> with a single engineer behind it? Does he/she get to sleep or go on >>> vacation? What happens when he/she quits? You sure that cheap little >>> hosting provider has the network bandwidth and resiliency you are going to >>> need? Now triple your infrastructure to be able to handle the hoped-for >>> huge spike in volume. Now crunch the numbers again and tell me what the >>> savings really is. It ain't anywhere close to $3,950 a month, that I am >>> sure of. >>> >>> >>> >>> On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 1:58:56 PM UTC-6, Rafael Sanches wrote: >>> >>>> Jim, >>>> >>>> In 2014 a good engineer can create your own cloud infrastructure with >>>> 10 machines like the ones I suggested. >>>> >>>> Again, I am not saying that I don't like appengine. In fact, I love it >>>> and that's why I stick with it. >>>> I am saying it's over priced to run a service like Snapchat. I don't >>>> think there's any argument there. >>>> >>>> >>>> Kaan, >>>> >>>> This is my gift to you: https://gist.github.com/mufumbo/8547036 >>>> >>>> It extends all of the appengine image features: "=s/-c" and includes >>>> the most useful one: "=h" >>>> >>>> Depending on appengine's image serving is a limitation, since "vertical >>>> cropping" is extremely useful on many elegant websites. >>>> >>>> For example, play around with: http://c1.picmix.net/61757192=s682=h300or >>>> http://c1.picmix.net/61757192=s300=h600 >>>> >>>> By the way, another way to reduce server costs is to pay the $400 or >>>> $200 a month in support. >>>> That way you get access to discounted instance hours. It decreased our >>>> bill a bit and give access to a place to get feedback when appengine is >>>> having problems or when you need to tweak your scheduling and performance >>>> parameters that you don't have access from XML config. >>>> >>>> About three months ago I spent a whole month optimizing my servers to >>>> reduce the costs from $10k to $5k. Even now, I feel it's too overpriced for >>>> the performance it's delivering. >>>> >>>> thanks >>>> rafa >>>> >>>> >>>> On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 11:30 AM, Kaan Soral <kaan...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>>> I think he gets it much more than you give him credit for >>>>> >>>>> Hetzner example, as I interpret it, and think about it myself, is >>>>> about the price of computing/ram/bandwith, although it's not comparable >>>>> 1:1, it's important to know how cheap computing and hosting has become >>>>> over >>>>> the years, especially in this last 5-10 years >>>>> >>>>> It was really interesting to hear about your story Rafael, it was the >>>>> approximate reason why I started this discussion, to learn and speculate >>>>> about major services >>>>> >>>>> The 2000$ to 300$ cdn comparison is interesting, however no other >>>>> service that I know of matches the extreme capabilities of google images >>>>> service >>>>> I use the =s/-c resizing/cropping extensively, that's why I could >>>>> never easily replace appengine, or the cdn >>>>> >>>>> You seem to have lived my worst case scenario, going out of money and >>>>> having to ask others for money. >>>>> >>>>> Anyway if you don't mind it would be great to learn more about your >>>>> product/story, but I'm guessing it's better to keep things as private as >>>>> possible :) >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 9:16:18 PM UTC+2, Jim wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> 1970's? What on earth about my post made you think of the 1970's? >>>>>> My description of geographically redundant, web based applications? >>>>>> Please >>>>>> indeed. >>>>>> >>>>>> The link you provided is for a LAMP hosting service... basically what >>>>>> I described in my third scenario about. That's apples-vs-oranges as >>>>>> compared to GAE. >>>>>> >>>>>> I suggest you consult with the Application Architects where you work >>>>>> and politely ask them to describe the differences to you. Clearly nobody >>>>>> here is getting through to you and I don't have the time or the >>>>>> inclination. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 12:35:13 AM UTC-6, Rafael Sanches wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Guys, >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Please, we're not in 1970 anymore. There is no argue that appengine >>>>>>> is the most expensive hosting on earth and possibly the universe. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> My company spend $4000 a month with appengine. We could host the >>>>>>> same service with $50 in a more powerful environment: >>>>>>> http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produktmatrix/rootserver-pr >>>>>>> oduktmatrix-ex<http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hetzner.de%2Fen%2Fhosting%2Fproduktmatrix%2Frootserver-produktmatrix-ex&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHB4pohCO2ZKGcxoTG5sY0nc6pvDw> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> With $300 we could make it redundant and more reliable and faster >>>>>>> than appengine. >>>>>>> A dedicated server is also more reliable, because of appengine >>>>>>> infamous "hicupps" due to its scheduling system and instance boot time. >>>>>>> In one of my services I rent a rack with 20 spaces and it's filled >>>>>>> with only 10 severs. It means I can scale my servers with 10 more. That >>>>>>> configuration costs $1000. >>>>>>> Please, pay attention for 10 dedicated quad-core with 32GB of ram. >>>>>>> How much would you pay in appengine for that type of throughput? I did >>>>>>> the >>>>>>> calculations: $60k. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Please, it's incomparable price wise. There's no argue and let's not >>>>>>> go there :) >>>>>>> >>>>>>> thanks >>>>>>> rafa >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 1:44 PM, Jim <jeb6...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I've seen many variations of this statement, "Google App Engine is >>>>>>>> expensive!", and it always strikes me as a bit off. I supppose it >>>>>>>> depends >>>>>>>> on your perspective and your requirements. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> For the past three years I've been running a small start-up >>>>>>>> building a SaaS analytics application. For the prior 25 years or so I >>>>>>>> built enterprise apps for some well-known software houses. The last 12 >>>>>>>> years I was building SaaS-based software products serving top-tier >>>>>>>> global >>>>>>>> financial institutions. During that time I worked on projects where we >>>>>>>> built, from the ground up, 2 different web-based solutions which wound >>>>>>>> up >>>>>>>> serving tens-of-thousands of end-users and very large volumes of >>>>>>>> system-to-system (B2B type) transaction volumes. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> When we created our infrastructure for these systems we needed >>>>>>>> multiple geographically dispersed data centers, high levels of >>>>>>>> fault-tolerance within any given data center, n-tier architecture, >>>>>>>> secure >>>>>>>> systems, scalable databases and front-end servers, system, security and >>>>>>>> network monitoring and administration, etc. When you spec that all out >>>>>>>> from scratch, you will have a hard time doing it for less than several >>>>>>>> hundred thousand dollars capex with big ongoing opex expense. Any >>>>>>>> growth >>>>>>>> beyond your initial headroom will require additional capex expenditure >>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>> incremental ongoing opex. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Depending on the profile of your application and the system load, >>>>>>>> at some point you will pass the threshold of it being cheaper to build >>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>> maintain your own equivalent infrastructure, but that threshold is >>>>>>>> very, >>>>>>>> very high. So it makes me think people who say GAE is 'expensive' are >>>>>>>> not >>>>>>>> making a comparison such as this. Maybe they don't really need >>>>>>>> everything >>>>>>>> that GAE offers. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Or perhaps they are comparing GAE to other cloud offerings such as >>>>>>>> AWS? Amazon's pricing doesn't seem to be radically different than >>>>>>>> Google's >>>>>>>> to me, for similar services. And given that Amazon's PaaS solution is >>>>>>>> not >>>>>>>> yet as complete at GAE, I think that any complete appliation built on >>>>>>>> AWS >>>>>>>> is going to require some level of system-engineering. System >>>>>>>> engineers are >>>>>>>> not cheap. One of the things we like about GAE is that, at this point >>>>>>>> in >>>>>>>> our corporate evolution, we can focus entirely on our Customers and our >>>>>>>> Software and not spend money or time configuring hardware, OS and other >>>>>>>> "low level" stuff that we (as application software guys) don't want to >>>>>>>> mess >>>>>>>> with. There are very real hard and soft monetary benefits to this. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Or maybe when people say "expensive" they mean as compared to other >>>>>>>> "cloud" offerings that are more along the lines of rented physical or >>>>>>>> virtual machines. Yes, some of these can be cheap compared to GAE. >>>>>>>> But >>>>>>>> these are really apples-to-oranges comparisons when you consider all >>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>> things you need to provision a global, "utility-grade" (aspirationally, >>>>>>>> anyway) SaaS offering. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> So I guess this post is a long-winded way of me saying "GAE >>>>>>>> Expensive? Really? What exactly do you mean by that? Compared to >>>>>>>> what?" >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Monday, January 20, 2014 4:19:54 AM UTC-6, coto wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> We all should be surprised, because Google App Engine is very >>>>>>>>> expensive!! >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> On Sunday, January 19, 2014 5:23:13 AM UTC-3, alex wrote: >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Why were you surprised? >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> -- >>>>>>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>>>>>>> Groups "Google App Engine" group. >>>>>>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, >>>>>>>> send an email to google-appengi...@googlegroups.com. >>>>>>>> To post to this group, send email to google-a...@googlegroups.com. >>>>>>>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine >>>>>>>> . >>>>>>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> -- >>>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>>>> Groups "Google App Engine" group. >>>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>>>> an email to google-appengi...@googlegroups.com. >>>>> To post to this group, send email to google-a...@googlegroups.com. >>>>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine. >>>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >>>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Google App Engine" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to google-appengi...@googlegroups.com. >>> To post to this group, send email to google-a...@googlegroups.com. >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >>> >> >> -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Google App Engine" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to google-appengine@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google App Engine" group. 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