We already have excellent cloud providers in Europe. But most importantly, most businesses using the cloud would be better off with simple on-prem solutions. So much cheaper to operate and control.

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9dev an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> So much cheaper to operate and control.

Until you factor in the salaries of the new employees you have to hire now, the cost of that hiring process, the compliance and security implications of operating servers on your premises, the ongoing maintenance of the software and operating systems, the new infrastructure to maintain, including but not limited to backup power supply and overall redundancy, the need to manage the lifecycle of the new hard- and software, the documentation for all of this… I could go on for a while.

It's not like these cloud solutions are just solving laziness.

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belorn 14 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Listen to a story about a fairly large company that switched to cloud and then back to on-premise. When they went cloud they quickly found out that they needed employees to manage the cloud infrastructure. The employee costs were similar for both setup.

Compliance and security testing does not go away just because you use cloud. The steps and questions will be different, but regulations like NIS and GDPR have extensive requirements regardless if you implement it yourself or buy it from an external supplier.

I would also not recommend to go with a single cloud solution with no backup solution and overall redundancy, unless a $5 voucher is good enough compensation for the service being down a whole day. The general recommendation after the latest waves of outages was for cloud users to use multiple cloud providers and multiple backup solution. It is just like how on-premise solutions need off-premise backups.

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no_op an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A lot of this could be standardized and packaged into a product, a modern take on the 'server appliance.' Unpack some gear, plug it together according to a nice diagram, connect to a management console that feels familiar to anyone who's deployed to the cloud.

	▲	9dev 37 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		That's essentially the bet of https://oxide.computer

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Black616Angel an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

But you can rent on-prem servers in some datacenter near you where all that is done for you.

	▲	9dev 35 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		First off, servers on someone else's premises are by definition not on-prem; and second, it still leaves you with a lot of the maintenance, management, and documentation overhead that comes with operating infrastructure equipment.
	▲	hsuduebc2 an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Do not forget that it is also cheaper. Main difference would be scalability which you do not inherently need. Not for ordinary bau.

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smarx007 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Most European "cloud" providers sell "wood": https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/dear-hosting-providers-you...

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ExoticPearTree an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> We already have excellent cloud providers in Europe.

Please provide a list, no sarcasm. And please don’t put Hetzner on it, as it is not a cloud provider.

	▲	arter45 2 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Ok, I'll bite. Why is it not a cloud provider? Most importantly, what is a cloud provider in your definition?

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nxm 37 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No, most wouldn’t. Too much risk and overhead for most companies to do so… most companies should and do just focus on the business value they add, rather than the underlying physical infra

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hsuduebc2 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Exactly. People used to think that aws is somehow convenient(partially true) and much cheaper which it absolutely isn't. Hooking on anything trendy and pretending it solve all the issues is tech illness.

For example micro services. You do not need infrastructure heavy software paradigms for large majority of use cases but it was just blindly accepted as new standart which we are now, again, moving away.

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jeffrallen 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Right, but have you tried recruiting someone recently who is capable of running a pair of local servers (including organizing redundant power feeds), upgrading the OS on them with no downtime, and arranging for off-site backups of the enterpris's data?

These used to be the skills of a generalist sysadmin for a small-site with on-prem services.

Those skills are no longer available on the market. Students in the local apprenticeship program have one class about hardware, and they don't even touch it, just talk about it.

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lucasRW an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

They are not European. They are French, or Swiss, or Scandinavian, each of those countries who may sooner or later not align anymore with your strategic interests. Countries should only trust themselves for sensitive stuff.

	▲	gf000 an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I mean, the Euro-zone is way more interconnected than that..
	▲	adrianN 44 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Why stop at countries? /s