Here the software side of the fad rears its head: there are about four dozen microservices involved, each with its own RDS instance, load balancer, the works. 5-6 different implementation languages were used and a large number depend on the JVM or other memory-hungry runtimes. There are a couple of so-called "data analysts" who don't really know what they're doing, never produce anything, and spend lots of money on EMR et al. Buzzwords abound.
The workload is containerized and orchestrated (of course, since a company so self-conscious about its tech fashions would never not be) but one can only increase the density so far, and obviously optimizing the infrastructure spend on "sexy cloud stuff" hasn't been the top priority.
Even hinting that hardware may be appropriate for a certain use case will bring out the bean counters in force. At a third company, I almost gave the "Global VP of Cloud Computing" an aneurysm by suggesting that there may be a use for some of the tens of millions of dollars of hardware that they'd recently purchased. In shock and disbelief, he shouted "What, now you're talking hybrid cloud?!" I said "if that's what you want to call it" as the rest of the room jumped to inform me that the R&D departments at the cloud providers ensure customers will always be using the latest datacenter technology, hastening to add that Microsoft is building a datacenter underwater somewhere, and thus it's a lost cause for anyone to run their own hardware. Some of the shadier cronies in the room chimed in to add that the hardwareless course of action had been confirmed as the ideal by both IBM and Accenture in studies commissioned by the VP.
Cloud resources are a useful tool in the toolbox, but as an industry, we have gone way overboard and lost all reason. At some point, when cloud inevitably loses its shine, the bubble must pop. If you're in the market for server hardware, this is a great time to buy.
The workload is containerized and orchestrated (of course, since a company so self-conscious about its tech fashions would never not be) but one can only increase the density so far, and obviously optimizing the infrastructure spend on "sexy cloud stuff" hasn't been the top priority.
Even hinting that hardware may be appropriate for a certain use case will bring out the bean counters in force. At a third company, I almost gave the "Global VP of Cloud Computing" an aneurysm by suggesting that there may be a use for some of the tens of millions of dollars of hardware that they'd recently purchased. In shock and disbelief, he shouted "What, now you're talking hybrid cloud?!" I said "if that's what you want to call it" as the rest of the room jumped to inform me that the R&D departments at the cloud providers ensure customers will always be using the latest datacenter technology, hastening to add that Microsoft is building a datacenter underwater somewhere, and thus it's a lost cause for anyone to run their own hardware. Some of the shadier cronies in the room chimed in to add that the hardwareless course of action had been confirmed as the ideal by both IBM and Accenture in studies commissioned by the VP.
Cloud resources are a useful tool in the toolbox, but as an industry, we have gone way overboard and lost all reason. At some point, when cloud inevitably loses its shine, the bubble must pop. If you're in the market for server hardware, this is a great time to buy.