On the mainframe renewal projects I have done, the mainframes have been leased. Hence there is no "CapEx" in the sense you mean it. On the enterprise cloud transformation projects I have done, there has been a substantial development cost ("CapEx") to get to the point where you can just drop in a .zip file. So the CapEx/OpEx question is complex.
The grandpa developer delivered a function, not a .zip file. Nowadays the developer needs to deliver a .zip file -- because the developer is responsible for wrapping the function in something that executes the function -- often SpringBoot in corporate environment.
He could use AWS Lambdas, but that locks them in. Also, you need to worry about restart times, and price/performance is high, because there are many layers of virtualization.
But the biggest loss is that in "best-of-breed architecture" (bunch microservices running in Kubernetes) the developers have in practice no way of guaranteeing data integrity. Systems are in perpetually inconsistent state (called "eventual consistency") and we just pretend the problem does not exist.
The grandpa developer could develop functions that would call other functions, and all would be executed within a transaction. It would be within his means to maintain data integrity.
For the individual developer, the situation is much better. I can get my Django application to be hosted on fly.io in no time and it is quite cheap. I think the cost of running services is temporarily subsidized by influx of VC money, but that will eventually change.
The grandpa developer delivered a function, not a .zip file. Nowadays the developer needs to deliver a .zip file -- because the developer is responsible for wrapping the function in something that executes the function -- often SpringBoot in corporate environment.
He could use AWS Lambdas, but that locks them in. Also, you need to worry about restart times, and price/performance is high, because there are many layers of virtualization.
But the biggest loss is that in "best-of-breed architecture" (bunch microservices running in Kubernetes) the developers have in practice no way of guaranteeing data integrity. Systems are in perpetually inconsistent state (called "eventual consistency") and we just pretend the problem does not exist.
The grandpa developer could develop functions that would call other functions, and all would be executed within a transaction. It would be within his means to maintain data integrity.
For the individual developer, the situation is much better. I can get my Django application to be hosted on fly.io in no time and it is quite cheap. I think the cost of running services is temporarily subsidized by influx of VC money, but that will eventually change.