Posts by Peter-Waterman1

37signals is completing its on-prem move, deleting its AWS account to save millions

Re: Press X to Doubt

5 nines has long been a gold standard for high-availability systems. But dont conflate design intent with real-world practicality and cost-efficiency.

S3’s design availability of 99.99% reflects the reality of running at massive scale, with global durability and geographic redundancy built in. That's something even the best on-premises solutions struggle to match without significant investment in infrastructure, personnel, and failover mechanisms. And that’s before considering patching, upgrades, hardware failures, and human error—all handled automatically or abstracted away in S3. Yes, the service credits may not feel generous, but the real value is in not needing them. Outages in S3 are rare and typically short-lived—compare that to diagnosing and resolving hardware or software issues in your own data center at 3 a.m.

AWS claims 50% of Azure workloads would jump ship if licensing costs allowed

Damn right! Well Said.. Microsoft are a bunch a wankers though, thats for sure.

LLM providers on the cusp of an 'extinction' phase as capex realities bite

I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion but I just had Claude Sonnet 3.7 write me a doc every bit as good as I could, maybe that says something about my doc writing! I’m sure ChatGPT could do it as well. It saved me at least five hours and I got my doc out in a morning rather than taking a few days. I'm now turbo charged in productivity. Seems very helpful to me. Hit me with them down votes!

There are 10,000 reasons to doubt Oracle Cloud's security breach denial

I remember Larry going on stage at Oracle world some years back, it’s on you tube, and the dude literally spends 10 minutes attacking AWS security. Talking about how Oracle cloud 2.0 was vastly superior yada yada yada.

Why he was using his keynote to give airtime about AWS I don't know, but its kind of ironic rhat a few years later it turns out their security is crap.

Amazon, Meta, Google sign pledge to triple nuclear power capacity by 2050

Re: Amazon, Meta, Google sign pledge to triple nuclear waste by 2050

At least its something?? Although seems to be kicking this into the long to grass. What about msft??

Microsoft: So what if it costs 4X as much to run Windows Server in AWS, Alibaba, and Google?

Re: re: because it's the base of what some customers "need".

The argument you put forward is don’t use Windows. In reality, an old, but critical application running on .Net must run on windows. There are millions of these applications out there and trying to make them run on Linux requires investment and time, both of which companies don’t have for these applications.

Your argument is flawed sir.

British Army zaps drones out of the sky with laser trucks

It looks like it uses the vehicle's onboard power systems, presumably diesel. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/serkan-k-b4b841a8_laser-air-defense-activity-7221442716847509504-t7JM/

"Power and Thermal Management:

- Integrated Power Supply: The system is designed to draw power from the vehicle’s onboard power supply, with additional provisions for dedicated power sources to ensure sustained operation."

GenAI comes for jobs once considered 'safe' from automation

The article doesn’t say replace roles, rather than certain roles will be affected. It goes into say people will be able to do a lot more with AI.

Developer pockets $2M in savings from going cloud-free

You clearly have no idea about cloud.

Google files first ever complaint with European Commission against Microsoft

Re: A pox on both their houses

Google has a search monopoly; they have an anti-trust case against them. Does that mean they can't call out Msft about their monopoly? It doesn't stop the fact that customers are getting screwed by Microsoft. I say go for it, Microsoft deserve it.

As Oracle's AWS deal completes Big 3 triumvirate, questions remain over licensing

Re: So, they're throwing in the towel on OCI?

Nah OCI is dead, Oracle is being sued for blowing up "Cloud" revenue and tricking investors

https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/11/oracle_cloud_sales_case/

The future of AI/ML depends on the reality of today – and it's not pretty

Re: Decisions, decisions...

Get back to work Bill

Top companies ground Microsoft Copilot over data governance concerns

Re: Large companies should be able to produce their own software.

Right… but then this article is essentially about securing your data correctly. The way the world is going, this should be the #1 priority. Once you have good control over your data, you should be able to use other people’s software without constantly worrying about your data security.

Right… but then this article is essentially about securing your data correctly. The way the world is going, this should be the #1 priority. Once you have good control over your data, you should be able to use other people’s software without constantly worrying about your data security.

UK tech pioneer Mike Lynch dead at 59

It’s certainly a crazy coincidence.

Gas pipeline players in talks to fuel AI datacenter demand

Re: AI is a front for ...

I love the LLMs. They are going to revolutionise the way we interact with information forever. But can’t they build mini nuclear plants rather than using gas? Seems like building more fossil powered stations is going the wrong way. Maybe the tech is not ready for prime time yet but I remember reading about a few companies developing mini plants.

Amazon: Our cloud growth just sped up. Did you know we are also quite a big retailer?

Re: Missed the Boat

I think you are right—I hadn't really thought about that, but I guess that's why they created it in the first place; it makes total sense. Still, it seems like they (Dell/HP et al.) really failed to respond in any meaningful way. Their growth has stagnated. HP revenue was 29.14B in 2019, and the same five years later. Almost the same with Dell. Feels like they lack vision

Missed the Boat

I was working at Dell back in 2012, and remember thinking Cloud seems to be a thing, and why, given Dell manufacturers servers, aren’t they building their cloud to compete. The commentary within Dell was around Cloud was too expensive, customers trying it and “repatriating” workloads back on prem and generally putting fingers in ears and saying Cloud wouldn’t take off. HP did try to create Cloud, but it just didn’t really get anywhere and they killed it off.

Seems like they both missed the boat and couldn’t recognise the threat to their business models, or were too unwieldy to respond. It now seems they will suffer from a slow decline and eventual death or consultation, selling of parts of the business that can’t withstand the competition. Kind of reminds me of Blockbusters or BlackBerry. But what is perplexing to me, is the meteoric rise of Dells share price, which doesn’t seem to reflect revenue stagnation and now decline.

Microsoft remains massively profitable, investors await AI payoff

Re: A New World

Windows market share (server) has been declining year on year for a while now, with the primary reason that companies have been slowly moving to containers, and serverless, both of which run on Linux. I mean, it is technically possible to run Windows containers, but I think it's well-established that Linux is the way to go.

CrowdStrike file update bricks Windows machines around the world

Re: Related?

Yes, crappy update, it happens; Microsoft release them all the time, and that's why you patch development and not go to production first without testing

Re: Ahhh, the Cloud, the Cloud

From what I read and widely speculated, cause that's fun to do, it seems like Crowndstrike released a dodgy update, and Microsoft rolled it out to production without testing probably and borked Azure. If that's true, there are so many questions, like why Microsoft is deploying things globally, or if you deployed it locally and borked something, why does it have a global effect - ie, WW dependency on some service - AD cough cough. But it is all speculation, but that's what we are here for right....now where is my pitch fork

Re: Related?

Let's test patches before we roll them out....nah, testing is for pussies.

Microsoft wasn't CISPE's only suitor – it seems Google was willing to pay for its views on cloudy licensing to prevail

Re: You gotta love the hypocrisy..

Customers who want to choice use open source, when you look at Linux market share, it's clear that this is the direction of travel for the majority, hell half of Azure run on Linux anyway.

Google reportedly in talks to buy infosec outfit Wiz for $23B

Re: Like I always say

Expert.

Nearly 20% of running Microsoft SQL Servers have passed end of support

Re: Perennial problem

Hold up, I thought we were bashing AI these days, keep up!

Musk wants to ban Apple at his companies for cosying up to OpenAI

What utter rubbish. You can take a LLM run it offline, in your data Center behind your network firewall preventing any data getting out or back to the LLM provider.

And if you look at an LLM like claud or gpt, it’s been trained on publicly available data so unless you leave your company data exposed to the internet you should be safe.

Now, if you start sending data to an LLM owned by someone else, over the internet, privacy isn’t the issue it’s the user.

China shows off machine-gun-toting robot dog and its AI-powered puppy

Re: Charge! (at the nearest power outlet)

Love The Register, whatever the topic, there are always a bunch of ‘experts’ that appear in the comments section putting in their 2 pence.

EU probes Meta over its provisions for protecting children

It's about time. The rabbit effect is terrible. Kids are getting content pushed to them without asking; of course, they will watch it, so the force-feeding is amplified. It's disgraceful, and frankly, I hope they get taken to the cleaners. He says as he goes back to Facebook to watch a bunch of car crashes, knockouts, and ladies in lycra.

AI gold rush continues as Microsoft invests $1.5B in UAE's G42

Re: Flushing cash down the lavvy.

I disagree. To me it feels like the 90's internet gold rush. AI will change the world in equally significant terms as the internet if not more. The first movers will be the winners. But what do any of us know, I guess?

Databricks claims its open source foundational LLM outsmarts GPT-3.5

Great, but the elephant in the room is you can't trust these things to tell the truth, and given that, I struggle to see how you can use these for anything other than creating fancy emails.

Five Eyes tell critical infra orgs: Take these actions now to protect against China's Volt Typhoon

Re: A bit late?

Microsoft could learn a thing or two from this

Microsoft decides it's done with Azure egress ransoms

Re: Egress smeegress

I’m sure Netflix would love a no egress fee model but not sure it makes good business sense for AWS

Euro-cloud consortium issues ultimatum to Microsoft: Fix your licensing or else

Re: Tip of the ice berg

Exactly this. But what’s stupid about their tactics is that it’s driving their own customers to Linux which is rapidly gaining market share.

Tip of the ice berg

Given all of Azure's security and reliability issues, they can't compete on a level playing field and need to bend the rules. Here are a few more items to throw on the fire:

No passive licencing is allowed on SQL Database as a service platform in the cloud, except Azure.

You are not allowed to bring Windows Server 2022 licences to the cloud, but you can use your licences to get a discount in Azure

You are not allowed to use Development licences, aka MSDN in the Cloud, except you can in Azure

Multi-session VDI (covered in this article)

Not allowed to use Office on Cloud VDI (until very recently in AWS, but still not in GCP)

Making rival clouds pay way more for their licences than the normal enterprise licence costs

Microsoft confirms Russian spies stole source code, accessed internal systems

Some clouds are better than others...just saying

Amazon goes nuclear, acquires Cumulus Data's atomic datacenters for $650M

Re: Buy existing vs build new

At least they are trying....Better than just buying the lowest cost, fossil fuel power

Google wants regulators to take Microsoft down a notch before it stifles AI

Re: ...Linux update does not require that you throw away your current computers and buy a new one.

We are taking sever, not desktop here.

Linux server seems like a sensible strategy compared to windows Server. Linux desktop on the other hand is a bit fiddly for most folks I think.

Windows Tax anyone?

The 2.5 major cloud providers need to play on a level playing field. It’s the consumers getting screwed to keep the tech companies share price high. That said, Microsoft takes it to a whole new level of screwing customers, and while it’s a complete pain in the arse to get off windows, long term why wouldn’t you have that strategy. Windows is basically a 40% tax on every VM you run, and as far as I can see Linux is a better OS anyway.

ValueLicensing tries to smack down Microsoft defenses in license reselling spat

Its a great model

The licensing model for Microsoft is excellent business; they dominate the market and dictate how customers must run their infrastructure. What their poor, unfortunate customers don't realise is when they swap that perpetual licence for a heavily discounted subscription, they also give up the right to take said perpetual licence to any cloud other than Azure. So they better like Azure; otherwise, they are going to have to re-licence their entire Windows/SQL estate to go somewhere else.

Microsoft embraces its inner penguin with Linux-powered Windows AI Studio

Re: Microsoft's inner penguin ?

Developers Developers Developers...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs

Oracle share price slides as it misses revenue expectations

“Our OCI business is improving profitability as it grows. The target gross margins for it are much higher than I think you expect because you're probably comparing it to some of the more pure-play cloud folks who somehow don't end up making as much money in all of this,” Catz said

AKA - we dont build our infrastructure to the same level of other providers so its more profitable for our shareholders

Europe signs off on up to €1.2B in state aid for homegrown cloud project

Re: This is what the UK should do

Right, kind of sums it up. Its going to take massive investment to build anything like AWS, GCP or Azure, and unless you build something as good, why would any company use it

Re: This is what the UK should do

UK companies would love to run on a UK-only Cloud, but not at the expense of getting the best platform. If a UK (or EU) cloud is substandard regarding reliability, features, or depth, it will be a hard sell (well maybe not vs Azure). The challenge for any new localised cloud is that they will be trying to catch up on nearly 20 years of public cloud investment, and while you can throw money at the issue, it will not be easy to catch up.

AWS rakes in half a billion pounds from UK Home Office

Guess it depends on how much profit Amazon makes in the UK

You're so worried about AWS reliability, the cloud giant now lets you simulate major outages

Re: Who me worry :)

err.... you can

Server sales down 31% at HPE as enterprises hack spending

It stands to reason that the continued growth of the cloud results from customers moving to the cloud and, therefore, no longer needing to buy servers from Dell/HP. I remember working for one of the big hardware providers and consistently hearing from customers that they were shutting multiple data centres and moving to the cloud, leaving maybe one colo. The writing was on the wall 6/7 years ago, and TBH, I am surprised the hardware vendors have fared as well as they have.

AWS plays with Fire TV Cube, turns it into a thin client for cloudy desktops

Re: Overcrowded Niche?

I am using VDI, and as someone who travels a lot, I see benefits to VDI. What I like is that I can use my (personal) gaming laptop everywhere and then connect to my workspace (VDI) when I need to access the corp network. A lot of apps sit behind a reverse proxy that is internet-facing; I can surf the company intranet and get to the tools I need from my gaming laptop that isn't under MDM without using VDI. For those few apps I cant get to, I fire up VDI and log in. I also have WhatsApp on my VDI machine, my gaming laptop, and my phone. I can share files instantly between them, and that works out pretty well.

What's crap is being on the train (anywhere without a 4G connection), needing to connect to the network and realising you are stuck...Still, for me, getting to travel with my gaming laptop makes that worthwhile.

OpenAI meltdown: How could Microsoft have let this happen after betting so many billions?

Re: Or...

Nadella cuts a more positive face than Ballmer, but the guy is ruthless all the same. He’s old school, long time leader, part of the Ballmer era and has been bought up in that toxic culture