Re: [google-appengine] Re: The price of Scalability

2011-07-07 Thread Noah McIlraith
I'm interested in dotcloud too, but their pricing isn't properly explained. 
Also, the free tier is extremely weak, 10mb of storage, 10mb of memory, wat? 
And the tier above free is 99USD per month :S

I wish there was some competition out there, everything is either: in closed 
beta, VPS with a "cloud" sticker attached, or just plain stupid.

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Re: [google-appengine] Re: The price of Scalability

2011-07-05 Thread Branko Vukelic
What about options like dotcloud? We are considering that for one of
our projects that will be free for end users (i.e., won't be making
enough money to pay for GAE at new pricing).

On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 2:05 AM, Waleed Abdulla  wrote:
> I'm running 3 apps on GAE with a total of ~150 instances.
> I had my app in PHP/Mysql on dedicated servers at first, and as I needed to
> scale, I moved to Python/GAE. I cannot do a fair comparison between the cost
> on dedicated servers and the cost on GAE because I also added new features.
> With that in mind, at the time of migration my GAE cost was about 4X what I
> paid on dedicated servers. But it's felt it was worth it because I get
> scaling, fault tolerance, and server admin for free. Overall, I felt that
> GAE was not cheap, but a good deal and I recommended it to everyone and got
> several other startups to use it based on my recommendation.
> I do tend to agree with the post on many points, though. The datastore gets
> slow and fails often (I'm on Master/Slave). The taskqueue also gets slow
> periodically creating long backlogs. And even when it's not slow, it
> generally runs tasks several seconds after their scheduled time. The price
> is more expensive than regular hosting if your app grows. And if you
> encounter a bug, it takes weeks of complaining on the mailing list before
> someone from Google lends a helping hand. That's on the dark side, but it's
> not all dark though.
> On the bright side, GAE is a lot of fun to work with. It hides all the
> boring details of managing servers and let's you focus on your product. And
> although it fails more often than dedicated servers, it's usually for
> shorter periods and it gets back online without requiring you to do
> anything. And, obviously, you don't need to worry about scaling too much.
> Overall, even with the mentioned issues, I still like GAE more than other
> options. But the new pricing makes it more expensive than I can afford. I'm
> looking for ways to optimize my code to reduce cost, and also looking at
> other options such as TyphoonAE and AppScale. Even if I end up moving some
> of my apps somewhere else, I'll probably continue to use GAE for smaller
> projects simply because of the easy setup and no hassle hosting.
> Waleed
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 3:49 PM, Brandon Wirtz  wrote:
>>
>> Support for a system with 100 users and 100k users is about the same.  No
>> one bills for support separately (Fine GAE bills $500) so the small guys
>> pay
>> more to cover support and administration.
>>
>>
>> -Original Message-
>> From: google-appengine@googlegroups.com
>> [mailto:google-appengine@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of zdravko
>> Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2011 3:32 PM
>> To: Google App Engine
>> Subject: [google-appengine] Re: The price of Scalability
>>
>> This price of scalability is an interesting animal.  Looking at AWS (for
>> an
>> example) transfer out bandwidth charges alone, the lowest and most
>> expensive
>> usage bracket is full 6x (SIX TIMES) more expensive then the highest and
>> least expensive bracket.  Considering that it's just bandwidth and that it
>> considers the least amount of "effort" to dissect and repackage into
>> smaller
>> doses, it is quite clear how much us little guys are subsidization the big
>> boys.
>>
>> Was the whole idea of volume buying not based on a  premise of "economies
>> of
>> scale" ?  Using delivery of physical goods as an example, was it all not
>> supposed to be based on the premise that delivering a truck load of
>> something is lot more economical then delivering a single pallet or a
>> single
>> book of matches?  If so, then what is it about bandwidth that makes it SIX
>> TIMES more expensive to deliver to us smaller guys?
>>
>> Are these sorts of pricing discounts in fact not the world's biggest price
>> collusions and price fixing?  How can the little guy ever manage to
>> compete
>> when it has to forever keep on subsidizing the big boys?
>> Where would the big conglomates ever be and what would really their bottom
>> lines look like if they had to pay their fare share?
>>
>> When it comes to bandwidth, I can not image a price differential that is
>> more than TWICE - between the smallest and the biggest bandwidth users?
>>
>> ARE WE THE ONES WHO ARE MAKING FINANCIALLY VIABLE USAGE MONSTERS SUCH AS
>> WWW.YOUTUBE.COM ?!?
>>
>>
>>
>> On Jul 3, 8:27 am, Tony  wrote:
>> > I just read this
>> > posthttp://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~silver/g

Re: [google-appengine] Re: The price of Scalability

2011-07-05 Thread Waleed Abdulla
I'm running 3 apps on GAE with a total of ~150 instances.

I had my app in PHP/Mysql on dedicated servers at first, and as I needed to
scale, I moved to Python/GAE. I cannot do a fair comparison between the cost
on dedicated servers and the cost on GAE because I also added new features.
With that in mind, at the time of migration my GAE cost was about 4X what I
paid on dedicated servers. But it's felt it was worth it because I get
scaling, fault tolerance, and server admin for free. Overall, I felt that
GAE was not cheap, but a good deal and I recommended it to everyone and got
several other startups to use it based on my recommendation.

I do tend to agree with the post on many points, though. The datastore gets
slow and fails often (I'm on Master/Slave). The taskqueue also gets slow
periodically creating long backlogs. And even when it's not slow, it
generally runs tasks several seconds after their scheduled time. The price
is more expensive than regular hosting if your app grows. And if you
encounter a bug, it takes weeks of complaining on the mailing list before
someone from Google lends a helping hand. That's on the dark side, but it's
not all dark though.

On the bright side, GAE is a lot of fun to work with. It hides all the
boring details of managing servers and let's you focus on your product. And
although it fails more often than dedicated servers, it's usually for
shorter periods and it gets back online without requiring you to do
anything. And, obviously, you don't need to worry about scaling too much.

Overall, even with the mentioned issues, I still like GAE more than other
options. But the new pricing makes it more expensive than I can afford. I'm
looking for ways to optimize my code to reduce cost, and also looking at
other options such as TyphoonAE and AppScale. Even if I end up moving some
of my apps somewhere else, I'll probably continue to use GAE for smaller
projects simply because of the easy setup and no hassle hosting.

Waleed



On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 3:49 PM, Brandon Wirtz  wrote:

> Support for a system with 100 users and 100k users is about the same.  No
> one bills for support separately (Fine GAE bills $500) so the small guys
> pay
> more to cover support and administration.
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: google-appengine@googlegroups.com
> [mailto:google-appengine@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of zdravko
> Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2011 3:32 PM
> To: Google App Engine
> Subject: [google-appengine] Re: The price of Scalability
>
> This price of scalability is an interesting animal.  Looking at AWS (for an
> example) transfer out bandwidth charges alone, the lowest and most
> expensive
> usage bracket is full 6x (SIX TIMES) more expensive then the highest and
> least expensive bracket.  Considering that it's just bandwidth and that it
> considers the least amount of "effort" to dissect and repackage into
> smaller
> doses, it is quite clear how much us little guys are subsidization the big
> boys.
>
> Was the whole idea of volume buying not based on a  premise of "economies
> of
> scale" ?  Using delivery of physical goods as an example, was it all not
> supposed to be based on the premise that delivering a truck load of
> something is lot more economical then delivering a single pallet or a
> single
> book of matches?  If so, then what is it about bandwidth that makes it SIX
> TIMES more expensive to deliver to us smaller guys?
>
> Are these sorts of pricing discounts in fact not the world's biggest price
> collusions and price fixing?  How can the little guy ever manage to compete
> when it has to forever keep on subsidizing the big boys?
> Where would the big conglomates ever be and what would really their bottom
> lines look like if they had to pay their fare share?
>
> When it comes to bandwidth, I can not image a price differential that is
> more than TWICE - between the smallest and the biggest bandwidth users?
>
> ARE WE THE ONES WHO ARE MAKING FINANCIALLY VIABLE USAGE MONSTERS SUCH AS
> WWW.YOUTUBE.COM ?!?
>
>
>
> On Jul 3, 8:27 am, Tony  wrote:
> > I just read this
> > posthttp://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~silver/gae.html
> >
> > The author seems unhappy with App Engine's offerings and have switched
> > to EC2, saying when the app scales big, the cost is very high (he used
> > the old Master/Slave datastore with high latency counted against CPU
> time).
> >
> > I myself like app engine a lot because from what I heard it offers
> > good scalability without complex setup and maintenance. But I don't
> > have much experience with it to say if the claims in the above post are
> true.
> > Especially now there are changes in pricing, I'm afraid the costs

RE: [google-appengine] Re: The price of Scalability

2011-07-05 Thread Brandon Wirtz
Support for a system with 100 users and 100k users is about the same.  No
one bills for support separately (Fine GAE bills $500) so the small guys pay
more to cover support and administration.


-Original Message-
From: google-appengine@googlegroups.com
[mailto:google-appengine@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of zdravko
Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2011 3:32 PM
To: Google App Engine
Subject: [google-appengine] Re: The price of Scalability

This price of scalability is an interesting animal.  Looking at AWS (for an
example) transfer out bandwidth charges alone, the lowest and most expensive
usage bracket is full 6x (SIX TIMES) more expensive then the highest and
least expensive bracket.  Considering that it's just bandwidth and that it
considers the least amount of "effort" to dissect and repackage into smaller
doses, it is quite clear how much us little guys are subsidization the big
boys.

Was the whole idea of volume buying not based on a  premise of "economies of
scale" ?  Using delivery of physical goods as an example, was it all not
supposed to be based on the premise that delivering a truck load of
something is lot more economical then delivering a single pallet or a single
book of matches?  If so, then what is it about bandwidth that makes it SIX
TIMES more expensive to deliver to us smaller guys?

Are these sorts of pricing discounts in fact not the world's biggest price
collusions and price fixing?  How can the little guy ever manage to compete
when it has to forever keep on subsidizing the big boys?
Where would the big conglomates ever be and what would really their bottom
lines look like if they had to pay their fare share?

When it comes to bandwidth, I can not image a price differential that is
more than TWICE - between the smallest and the biggest bandwidth users?

ARE WE THE ONES WHO ARE MAKING FINANCIALLY VIABLE USAGE MONSTERS SUCH AS
WWW.YOUTUBE.COM ?!?



On Jul 3, 8:27 am, Tony  wrote:
> I just read this 
> posthttp://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~silver/gae.html
>
> The author seems unhappy with App Engine's offerings and have switched 
> to EC2, saying when the app scales big, the cost is very high (he used 
> the old Master/Slave datastore with high latency counted against CPU
time).
>
> I myself like app engine a lot because from what I heard it offers 
> good scalability without complex setup and maintenance. But I don't 
> have much experience with it to say if the claims in the above post are
true.
> Especially now there are changes in pricing, I'm afraid the costs may 
> be driven a lot higher.
>
> Can anyone who is having a popular app on app engine give me your 
> thoughts on the post? Do you see the new pricing scheme make scaling 
> app a lot more expensive?

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[google-appengine] Re: The price of Scalability

2011-07-05 Thread zdravko
This price of scalability is an interesting animal.  Looking at AWS
(for an example) transfer out bandwidth charges alone, the lowest and
most expensive usage bracket is full 6x (SIX TIMES) more expensive
then the highest and least expensive bracket.  Considering that it's
just bandwidth and that it considers the least amount of "effort" to
dissect and repackage into smaller doses, it is quite clear how much
us little guys are subsidization the big boys.

Was the whole idea of volume buying not based on a  premise of
"economies of scale" ?  Using delivery of physical goods as an
example, was it all not supposed to be based on the premise that
delivering a truck load of something is lot more economical then
delivering a single pallet or a single book of matches?  If so, then
what is it about bandwidth that makes it SIX TIMES more expensive to
deliver to us smaller guys?

Are these sorts of pricing discounts in fact not the world's biggest
price collusions and price fixing?  How can the little guy ever manage
to compete when it has to forever keep on subsidizing the big boys?
Where would the big conglomates ever be and what would really their
bottom lines look like if they had to pay their fare share?

When it comes to bandwidth, I can not image a price differential that
is more than TWICE - between the smallest and the biggest bandwidth
users?

ARE WE THE ONES WHO ARE MAKING FINANCIALLY VIABLE USAGE MONSTERS SUCH
AS WWW.YOUTUBE.COM ?!?



On Jul 3, 8:27 am, Tony  wrote:
> I just read this posthttp://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~silver/gae.html
>
> The author seems unhappy with App Engine's offerings and have switched to
> EC2, saying when the app scales big, the cost is very high (he used the old
> Master/Slave datastore with high latency counted against CPU time).
>
> I myself like app engine a lot because from what I heard it offers good
> scalability without complex setup and maintenance. But I don't have much
> experience with it to say if the claims in the above post are true.
> Especially now there are changes in pricing, I'm afraid the costs may be
> driven a lot higher.
>
> Can anyone who is having a popular app on app engine give me your thoughts
> on the post? Do you see the new pricing scheme make scaling app a lot more
> expensive?

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[google-appengine] Re: The price of Scalability

2011-07-05 Thread nischalshetty
I have an app on GAE/J that has around 50-100 instances running at any point 
of the day (single threaded, yet to do the thread safe thingy).

1. Datastore problems have reduced (I'm on master/slave) and almost 
disappeared on high replication
2. Costs at the present price for an app that consumes resources the way my 
app does should be in the range of $300-$500 per month which I think is 
justified. I have a very small component of AWS and that costs me $100 so 
I'm guessing if my entire application was on AWS it would have cost me at 
least $1000 + many man hours managing it

Frankly, I'm not happy with the new pricing scheme (at least what it looks 
like right now). We'll know more once it's implemented. If the cost increase 
is twice or even thrice of the current price, I think it would still be 
worth it. But anything above that would be a rip off, at least for me!

Having said all this, I want you to know that I'm building yet another new 
app http://buffr.com and yes, I very well know costs may tilt towards being 
prohibitive for a big app on the appengine. But I'm still going to prefer 
building new apps on the Appengine simply because it is extremely easy to 
get started and go live! 

Take my advice, get started on the appengine. Grass on the other side always 
looks greener but every platform has its pros and cons.

A time will come when your app grows big and if you don't find appengine 
suitable you can move it some place else (it's never too late to change 
things in software). You can then write a post on how appengine was not the 
best decision because your app became insanely popular. Let that day come, 
you wouldn't regret it so much ;)


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[google-appengine] Re: The price of Scalability

2011-07-04 Thread Kaan Soral
I am currently using ~30 instances, with rough calculations that makes
800$'s a month. If you just calculate 30*34*0.08*30 that makes
something around 1700's but I considered improvements and traffic
patterns,
Anyway,
I am paying $2 a day, using python, probably I am earning $8-10, maybe
sometimes less than $2

To sum up, if the pricing changes I am doomed

If they modify python instances so that they can handle multiple
requests at once, that would be great, but otherwise python apps are
doomed

I think Java and Go should be ok

But even with this pricing scheme, if you app is ad based, you are
under the risk of fluctuating ad economy

But if you have a service with perfect monetization, something like a
clever game which siphons users, you should be ok

There was a discussion earlier, someone was asking if Twitter could be
written on GAE, some said it couldn't be, but Ikai said it can be, I
agree that It can be written, but probably they would lose millions of
$'s everyday with this pricing scheme :D

On Jul 3, 3:27 pm, Tony  wrote:
> I just read this posthttp://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~silver/gae.html
>
> The author seems unhappy with App Engine's offerings and have switched to
> EC2, saying when the app scales big, the cost is very high (he used the old
> Master/Slave datastore with high latency counted against CPU time).
>
> I myself like app engine a lot because from what I heard it offers good
> scalability without complex setup and maintenance. But I don't have much
> experience with it to say if the claims in the above post are true.
> Especially now there are changes in pricing, I'm afraid the costs may be
> driven a lot higher.
>
> Can anyone who is having a popular app on app engine give me your thoughts
> on the post? Do you see the new pricing scheme make scaling app a lot more
> expensive?

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