Comment by shrubble
1 month ago
It's more than that - it's all the latency that you can remove from the equation with your bare-metal server.
No network latency between nodes, less memory bandwidth latency/contention as there is in VMs, no caching architecture latency needed when you can just tell e.g. Postgres to use gigs of RAM and then let Linux's disk caching take care of the rest (and not need a separate caching architecture).
The difference between a fairly expensive ($300) RDS instance + EC2 in the same region vs a $90 dedicated server with a NVME drive and postgres in a container is absolutely insane.
A fair comparison would include the cost of the DBA who will be responsible for backups, updates, monitoring, security and access control. That’s what RDS is actually competing with.
Paying someone $2000 to set that up once should result in the costs being recovered in what, 18 months?
If you’re running Postgres locally you can turn off the TCP/IP part; nothing more to audit there.
SSH based copying of backups to a remote server is simple.
If not accessible via network, you can stay on whatever version of Postgres you want.
I’ve heard these arguments since AWS launched, and all that time I’ve been running Postgres (since 2004 actually) and have never encountered all these phantom issues that are claimed as being expensive or extremely difficult.
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I do consulting in this space, and we consistently make more money from people who insist on using cloud services, because their setups tend to need far more work.
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As long as you also include the Cloud Certified DevOps Engineer™[0] to set up that RDS instance.
[0] A normal sysadmin remains vaguely bemused at their job title and the way it changes every couple years.
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You are aware that RDS needs backups, setting up monitoring properly, defining access, providing secrets management etc., and updates between major versions are not automatic?
RDS has a value. But for many teams the price paid for this value is ridiculously high when compared to other options.
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While that's fair, most organizations I've worked at in the past decade have had a dedicated team for managing their cloud setup, which is also responsible for backups, updates, monitoring, security and access control. I don't think they're competing.
You don’t need a DBA for any of those, you need someone who can read some docs. It’s not witchcraft.
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The RDS solution doesn't need a technical person to set it up?
It doesn't need someone who knows how to use the labrythine AWS services and console?
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Totally. My frustration isn't even price though RDS is literally just dog slow.
My firm paid DBAs for RDS as well so..
Yeah but AWS SRE are what making the big bucks! Soooo what can you do? It is nice to see many people here on HN are supporting open network and platform and making very drastic comments as to encouraging google engineers to quite their jobs.
I totally also understand why some people with family to support mortgage to pay they can't just walk way from a job at FAANG or MAMAA type place.
Looking at your comparison, this point it just seems like a scam.
Right now the big bucks are in managing massive bare metal GPU clusters.
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