The Cloud Is a Prison. Can the Local-First Software Movement Set Us Free?
The Cloud Is a Prison. Can the Local-First Software Movement Set Us Free?
Tired of relying on Big Tech to enable collaboration, peer-to-peer enthusiasts are creating a new model that cuts out the middleman. (That’s you, Google.)
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We have already seen the effects of over-reliance on a few CDNs and cloud providers: One bad push, one ill intentioned employee and potentially entire portions of the web might become unaccessible. That by itself should have been the end of this business model long ago
So you're recognizing that a bad command execution can exist in CDN or cloud provider, but where is your recognition of the tens of millions off bad command executions that happen in small IT shops every month?
I looks like you're ignoring the practical realities that companies rarely ever:
- hire enough support staff
- hire enough skilled staff
- invest in enough redundant infrastructure to survive hardware or connectivity failures
- design applications with resiliency
- have high enough rigor for audit, safe change control, rollback
- shield the operations stupid decisions leads impose because business goals are more important that IT safety
All of these things lead to system impacts and downtime that can only come from running your own datacenters.
The cloud isn't perfect, but for lots and lots of companies its a much better and cheaper option than "rolling your own".
Given the context of the article, the alternative suggestion isn't "set up your own server" but "use software that doesn't require a server", which sidesteps most of that list.
but where is your recognition of the tens of millions off bad command executions that happen in small IT shops every month?
A bad command execution in a small IT shop will only bring down a couple of websites at most. A bad command execution in large cloud providers can literally make significant portions of the web unavailable, just by the sheer number of services dependent on it.
The same applies for most of the "practical realities" you noted out: Redundant infrastructure can only work as well as the software running on it. The convenience is not worth the risk.
A bad command execution in large cloud providers can literally make significant portions of the web unavailable, just by the sheer number of services dependent on it.
You can't have it both ways. You're trying to call out all of the benefits of running your own infra, but then calling out the downsides of public cloud. Talk apples to apples or oranges to oranges. The point I'm making in the post you're responding to is that "rolling-your-own" as an organization, specifically a small or medium sized one, comes with risks that far outweigh the costs and risks of public cloud.
The convenience is not worth the risk.
That is not the opinion of non-IT business leaders make decisions to the detriment of the advice of IT departments. You're ignoring that good IT decisions don't get to be make by good IT professionals. You're always limited to the budget and power granted by your organization. That is the practical reality.
can only come from running your own datacenters.
cough.. whhhat.. all of those thing can and do occur in cloud-only companies. just because its someone elses hardware doesnt mean every single thing you listed isnt a risk.
If no legal issues stand in your way and your uptime requirement warrant the invest, you can design and host your system across multiple providers. So instead of "just" going multi-datacenter within for example Azure, you go multi-datacenter across Azure, AWS, GCP, etc.
The problem with that, is that you now have to maintain virtual infrastructure in many different syntaxes. And features of one do not exist in another.
Plus things like cash and session do not cross those boundaries.
They all offer managed kubernetes. So that would be my common divisor.
How? Each cloud provider manages their cross-regional solutions in very specific ways, and they certainly don't cooperate with each other.