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Optimize with a SATA RAID Storage Solution
Range of capacities as low as $1250 per TB. Ideal if you currently rely on servers/disks/JBODs
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"That freaks out a number of people, so typically it takes them to try a few projects, see where it works, where it doesn't work, why it doesn't work, could it be improved, but it takes a bit of learning to kind of relax and let it go."
All of this reminds me of the late '90s when marketing would outsource Microsoft ASP projects that were a royal mess -- then dump them on core IT for maintenance. I asked Sacha how we can have our PaaS and faster IT without ending up with a tangle of an architecture -- basically a bunch of disparate PaaS and IaaS deployments that don't share data, require separate logins, and reflect no coherent picture of the business.
Sacha's answer: This is where core IT comes in. "To me, this is a new role of IT. I know IT is not going to be focused on cabling systems and setting IT addresses tomorrow. What I also know is that IT is not going to disappear. What is the job of IT? The job of IT is to step up and defend the assets of the company, and they have to make sure they keep a well-architected map of our system. They are the maintainer of that map."
Defeating the legions of the Bastard Operator from Hell
I like getting Sacha's goat. It has something to do with his thick Swiss accent and tendency to be politically correct. I
asked Sacha how developers can help drive cloud adoption and defeat the evil forces of the Bastard Operator from Hell.
"I think the first thing to do is to just give it a try. I'm surprised and amazed at how many people have an opinion on this without even trying it. They're like the best conspiracy theorists out there, right? 'I'm sure you can't do that' -- why not just give it a try? Also, maybe this is a European behavior, but I see a lot of people trying to take a horribly sophisticated project. 'OK, to make sure it works, I'm going to take a project with that type of database, with that type of high-level requirements, that piggybacks...'
"Forget it. Take a basic application, no corner case, no sophistication, and give it a try -- because the most important thing is to get up to speed. You need to learn. So don't muddle that experience with some corner case. Those will be obvious to solve once you get past the initial hurdle. Take an easy project and get started."
Then, says Sacha, if your policy permits, take a real project, push it to production (or pre-production) on a PaaS, and try it there. "What you want to do is to get back to IT with factual information about how this is a good option. You don't want to have a theoretical discussion with IT as to whether it is a good option or a bad option. You're gonna lose in that case."
Nothing succeeds like success. For example, if you can create a project and push it to production with complete test coverage in under a month, IT is going to like that. "That's where you need to turn the tables," says Sacha. "Then you say: 'I'd like you to give me a competitive offering where I can get started on the project in under a day. I want to be able to go to production without having to talk to you guys, I want to be able to push an iteration by some set date. I don't want to pre-pay for my machine, because maybe the project will turn out to be a bad idea.'"