Leaving the Cloud
Episode 24: Show Notes
While our preference is always to use the cloud to address IT problems, today we look at a company that is doing the opposite. 37signals, the company behind the project management software Basecamp and the email system Hey, has decided to bring their workloads off the cloud and back into a data center. DHH, the Co-owner and CTO of 37signals, recently announced that the company had spent $3.2 million on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and felt that the money would have been better spent purchasing their own servers and running it themselves. In this episode, we break down the cost structure of what 37signals spent their money on in 2022, the typical arguments for moving out of the cloud and into a data center, and what key factors you need to consider before doing the same. With so many layoffs occurring in tech companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Salesforce, and so much instability in the industry, business concerns are driving developments in the tech space more than ever before. Tune in to find out more about the future of the cloud, why moving away from it may be the right decision for 37signals, and why this is not the right move for every company.
Key Points From This Episode:
Tweetables:
“Some of the advantages that the cloud has that the data center does not have, such as the ability to dramatically auto-scale out and scale back to respond to your traffic needs, are not going to be as appealing to [37signals].” — Logan Gallagher [0:11:23]
“I think it’s very interesting that they did take advantage of the cloud for that early scaling growth and it probably was beneficial at the time when Hey was growing faster than anticipated.” — Logan Gallagher [0:13:28]
“Every layoff represents a failure of management, a failure of management either to have the right kind of people or the right kind of growth or to anticipate where the economy was.” — Jon Gallagher [0:18:23]
“The cloud added more space to the tool chest, a new set of tools. Those are the tools that we pick up first. But every set of tools in IT still has a role.” — Jon Gallagher [0:19:25]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Leaving the Cloud
Episode 24: Show Notes
While our preference is always to use the cloud to address IT problems, today we look at a company that is doing the opposite. 37signals, the company behind the project management software Basecamp and the email system Hey, has decided to bring their workloads off the cloud and back into a data center. DHH, the Co-owner and CTO of 37signals, recently announced that the company had spent $3.2 million on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and felt that the money would have been better spent purchasing their own servers and running it themselves. In this episode, we break down the cost structure of what 37signals spent their money on in 2022, the typical arguments for moving out of the cloud and into a data center, and what key factors you need to consider before doing the same. With so many layoffs occurring in tech companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Salesforce, and so much instability in the industry, business concerns are driving developments in the tech space more than ever before. Tune in to find out more about the future of the cloud, why moving away from it may be the right decision for 37signals, and why this is not the right move for every company.
Key Points From This Episode:
Tweetables:
“Some of the advantages that the cloud has that the data center does not have, such as the ability to dramatically auto-scale out and scale back to respond to your traffic needs, are not going to be as appealing to [37signals].” — Logan Gallagher [0:11:23]
“I think it’s very interesting that they did take advantage of the cloud for that early scaling growth and it probably was beneficial at the time when Hey was growing faster than anticipated.” — Logan Gallagher [0:13:28]
“Every layoff represents a failure of management, a failure of management either to have the right kind of people or the right kind of growth or to anticipate where the economy was.” — Jon Gallagher [0:18:23]
“The cloud added more space to the tool chest, a new set of tools. Those are the tools that we pick up first. But every set of tools in IT still has a role.” — Jon Gallagher [0:19:25]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: