Cost-Efficient Scale-Out Cloud Storage

Gleb Budman (@GlebBudman, CEO/Co-Founder of @Backblaze) talks about the evolution of cloud storage, the shift from on-prem to cloud, best practices and the rise of ransomware.

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SHOW NOTES:

• Backblaze (homepage)
• B2 Cloud Storage (1/5th the price of AWS S3)
• Backblaze Blog 
• Questions for Gleb? 

Topic 1 - Welcome to the show. You started Backblaze in 2007, just a year after AWS S3 launched. What made you decide to start a storage company when EMC, HP and NetApp dominated with big enterprise boxes, and S3 seemed like a weird new thing for Amazon sellers? 

Topic 2 - Over the last couple of years, it feels like there has been a shift in how companies think about “the cloud”. We’re seeing more specialty clouds. How do you see this trend playing out in the market?

Topic 3 - You’ve been through multiple stages of how the cloud has evolved. Where do you see us now in terms of cloud evolution, and what are some of the things you see coming on the horizon?  

Topic 4 - Backblaze is well known for disrupting both the cost of cloud storage, but also how storage systems are built. Given today’s economic climate, are you seeing more companies demand more flexibility &/or efficiency on how they store data?  

Topic 5 - We continue to see ransomware attacks across all industries. Is this leading companies to rethink their backup and disaster-recovery strategies?

Topic

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Kubernetes Cost Optimization

Shahar Yakov (@shahar_yakov, Product Manager @GranulateLtd, an Intel company) talks about the different factors in optimizing Kubernetes costs.

SHOW: 651

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SHOW NOTES:

• Granulate (homepage)
• gMaestro - Kubernetes Cost Optimization 

Topic 1 - Welcome to the show. Tell us a bit about your background, and what you focus on now at Granulate. 

Topic 2 - Let’s start by talking about Cost Optimization. What’s a good framework to think about this problem? Is it a focus on over-provisioning, or optimizing applications, or a different approach?

Topic 3 - What are some of the most common areas where Kubernetes needs to better manage costs? Is it more at the infrastructure layer, or at the application layer?

Topic 4 - Tell us about the recently launched gMaestro. How does it work, and what are the common ways that companies would begin to use it to optimize their environments?

Topic 5 - Are some optimizations more immediately impactful? Are some optimizations more focused on long-term cost savings?

Topic 6 - What are the best ways for companies to engage around gMaestro? 

FEEDBACK?

• Email: show at the cloudcast dot net
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Tips for Identifying Tech Trends

For more than 10 years we’re interviewed the people that changed the tech world. What are some tips and tricks to identify which trends emerge, survive and fail? 

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• 2020 Year in Review
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IDENTIFYING TRENDS TO HIGHLIGHT ON THE PODCAST

1. 522 shows, 57 companies acquired, $4.9B in VC funding, $58B in Acquisitions/IPOs
2. Track Record of Founding Team, Macro Trends, Societal Trends

VC TRENDS vs. TECHNOLOGY TRENDS vs. CUSTOMER BUYING TRENDS

1. There is a very long lifecycle between university research vs. early VC investments vs. early technology trends vs. customer buying trends. Often 10-20 years.
2. Gracely’s Theorem: “There are very few truly new ideas, rather there are mostly advancements because of improved CPUs and Networking speeds.”
3. The Platform vs. Feature test: A baseline platform or higher-level platform? 
4. The Bed, Bath & Beyond test: Is it more than 50% cheaper than previous generations?
5. The Friction test: Does it remove significant barriers to previous generations?
6. The Don’t Fight a Land War in Asia test: Is it trying to be too many things to too many people?
7. The Follow-the-Money test: How do companies around this technology make money? Does the ecosystem make money? Are there adjacent paths to monetization?
8. The Culture Change test: People don’t like change, especially for change’s sake. Changing culture is one of the hardest things to do at most companies. 
9. The Re-Education test: How much of a learning curve is required to make this technology successful? 

FEEDBACK?

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Repatriation and Cloud Cost Management

While there are scenarios where public cloud is much less expensive than data centers, there are times when it’s much more expensive. Is repatriation a viable way to manage cloud costs? 

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SHOW NOTES:

• The Cost of Cloud, a Trillion Dollar Paradox (a16z)
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ARTICLE QUOTES: 

Repatriation results in one-third to one-half the cost of running equivalent workloads in the cloud

You’re crazy if you don’t start in the cloud; you’re crazy if you stay on it.

infrastructure spend should be a first-class metric

THE CASE FOR REPATRIATION

1. Cloud costs are a large % of Cost of Sales (often times 50-80%)
2. Cloud providers operate on large margins (e.g. AWS at 30%)
3. Repatriation could reduce costs 30-50% of existing cloud spend

THE REALITIES OF REPATRIATION

1. The case in the article is primarily based on 25-40x valuation multiples for software companies. While every companies believes they are a software company today, not every company is getting 25-40x revenue multiple from the market.  
2. All repatriation calculations begin with, “if you run a highly efficient data center”
3. All repatriation calculations next involve, “assuming you have the talent to run a cloud”
4. Repatriation is technical debt. How does your company typically handle that?
5. Less than 100% repatriation creates multiple operational models (ops, billing, security, etc.)
6. Most companies use a subset of the features in any given cloud.
7. Can you create a financial situation in your data center that’s similar to the cloud?

 

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• Email: show at thecloudcast dot net
• Twitter: @thecloudcastnet