> You'd rack a server or two, install Linux, stick the application in /usr/local/bin, make sure Apache was set up, and you were off and running. Simple enough.
That sounds incredibly complex! :) Where would you find a place to rack a server? Are there minimum rates for such a place, or can you rack a single server for one month? Would you be able to rack it yourself? What if there was some problem with the PSU, and the server lost power when the data center was fine? What if the network card failed? What about if a hard drive in the server blew out?
Cloud infra in 2021 infrastructure has pretty turnkey answers to all of those (Kubernetes is not one for any of the ones I mentioned, except maybe for “what happens when any node goes down“). So yes, the complexity might be high, but so are the capabilities.
I mean, maybe you are running a mom-and-pop shop with a server rack in the basement for some reason, and have pretty daytime-specific hours. That's fine, and I still think you can do the server rack thing. Or at least that's the way I see it.
Perhaps one piece of meta-commentary here is that server hardware has not become substantially cheaper, faster, smaller, and easier to set up since 20 years ago. I can't really set up a server in my small bedroom that's capable of serving 10k concurrent users, and doesn't deafen me with its noise. Maybe if I did, all this cloud stuff might be less ubiquitous?
That sounds incredibly complex! :) Where would you find a place to rack a server? Are there minimum rates for such a place, or can you rack a single server for one month? Would you be able to rack it yourself? What if there was some problem with the PSU, and the server lost power when the data center was fine? What if the network card failed? What about if a hard drive in the server blew out?
Cloud infra in 2021 infrastructure has pretty turnkey answers to all of those (Kubernetes is not one for any of the ones I mentioned, except maybe for “what happens when any node goes down“). So yes, the complexity might be high, but so are the capabilities.
I mean, maybe you are running a mom-and-pop shop with a server rack in the basement for some reason, and have pretty daytime-specific hours. That's fine, and I still think you can do the server rack thing. Or at least that's the way I see it.
Perhaps one piece of meta-commentary here is that server hardware has not become substantially cheaper, faster, smaller, and easier to set up since 20 years ago. I can't really set up a server in my small bedroom that's capable of serving 10k concurrent users, and doesn't deafen me with its noise. Maybe if I did, all this cloud stuff might be less ubiquitous?