Get What You Pay For?

  • Comments posted to this topic are about the item Get What You Pay For?

  • Can you honestly say that large monthly cloud bills are better than the initial large expense of hardware? Hardware costs once, monthly subscription (and unexpectedly large charges) are an eternal void that can never be satisfied.

  • Enterprise vs consumer grade SSD is something that I'll consider. My wife bought me a new PC a few months ago and after I installed Microsoft Office, Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, and a few necessary utilities, I don't have room to install Visual Studio. I need to double or quadruple the system SSD. I tend to keep my personal PC for a long while, so enterprise grade is probably the better choice for me.

  • roger.plowman - Thursday, June 7, 2018 6:48 AM

    Can you honestly say that large monthly cloud bills are better than the initial large expense of hardware? Hardware costs once, monthly subscription (and unexpectedly large charges) are an eternal void that can never be satisfied.

    I think in this case, the way business tends to look at it is, they no longer need to pay the people who were there to support that hardware, and can either release them, or move them to another part of the company.  Plus, one advantage touted for "cloud" systems is you can configure the system to use the minimum needed, then when more power is needed (say, end of quarter reporting) add capacity, rather than having to buy hardware with the capacity for the end of quarter, but that capacity will spend most of the year essentially idling.

    Ralph Hightower - Thursday, June 7, 2018 6:50 AM

    Enterprise vs consumer grade SSD is something that I'll consider. My wife bought me a new PC a few months ago and after I installed Microsoft Office, Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, and a few necessary utilities, I don't have room to install Visual Studio. I need to double or quadruple the system SSD. I tend to keep my personal PC for a long while, so enterprise grade is probably the better choice for me.

    To be honest, even with a fairly busy home system, you'll likely be OK with a regular consumer-grade drive.

  • roger.plowman - Thursday, June 7, 2018 6:48 AM

    Can you honestly say that large monthly cloud bills are better than the initial large expense of hardware? Hardware costs once, monthly subscription (and unexpectedly large charges) are an eternal void that can never be satisfied.

    I can't because not every situation is the same. But... for some it is a great trade off. Here are some reasons:

    • A company might not have the staff to deal with a number of issues that cloud services provide
    • This can avoid spending cash that might be useful elsewhere.
    • It might avoid a loan which has its own ramifications.
    • It might be to avoid licensing issues (or get out of an audit).
    • It allows for easier expansion (or contraction).
    • Many cloud contracts are designed to NOT have fluctuation in the price reducing the variable expenses.
  • Even in an Enterprise IT environment there can be a place for a one-off cheap consumer grade DAS or NAS storage. It really depends on the SLA for the application. For example, the ETL team may request 2 TB of storage for use as a staging area to land files prior to loading them.

    "Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho

  • roger.plowman - Thursday, June 7, 2018 6:48 AM

    Can you honestly say that large monthly cloud bills are better than the initial large expense of hardware? Hardware costs once, monthly subscription (and unexpectedly large charges) are an eternal void that can never be satisfied.

    It's all in the situation. In some cases, yes. For running some things, it's way better. Don't forget the monthly expense is different than the capital outlay for tax reasons. The same reason it makes sense to hire contractors at times.

    Of course, plenty of people make poor decisions on both of those.

    If you view this from a consumer perspective, which some IT people do, it's not the same. You'll make a skewed judgment. This isn't the same.

    In addition, hardware isn't a one time cost. There are refreshes, ongoing costs of maintenance, monitoring, patching, etc. All of those are items that we sometimes don't capture well and don't compare.

    My thoughts are that the cloud is on the bubble. In some cases it makes sense, in some it doesn't. In very few it's vastly preferable or vastly silly. The exceptions to the latter are when security regulations might be involved.

  • jasona.work - Thursday, June 7, 2018 7:26 AM

    Ralph Hightower - Thursday, June 7, 2018 6:50 AM

    Enterprise vs consumer grade SSD is something that I'll consider. My wife bought me a new PC a few months ago and after I installed Microsoft Office, Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, and a few necessary utilities, I don't have room to install Visual Studio. I need to double or quadruple the system SSD. I tend to keep my personal PC for a long while, so enterprise grade is probably the better choice for me.

    To be honest, even with a fairly busy home system, you'll likely be OK with a regular consumer-grade drive.

    My experience is that consumer grade SSDs don't last all that well - I want drives that will last for longer than I expect a laptop to last - my current (consumer grade) laptop is 5 years old and is on its second main drive - I'd gone for a machine with a consumer-grade main drive; my previous laptop was used for both work and home for 5 years (far more intense usage than the current one) and then as only my home laptop for 5 years after I retired (until I wanted to upgrade to Windows 8) and for the last  4 years has been used intermittently for games that don't run on Windows 8 or anything later, and still has its original main drive - it is an enterprise grade laptop including an enterprise grade main drive.   I've used consumer grade drives for backup, not particularly intensive use, and even there they generally don't last long.

    Tom

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