Re:How Ahrefs Gets a Billion Dollar-Worth Infrastructure wit...
by RamblingCTO on Thursday May 09, 2024 @10:08AM
(#40308389)
Maybe my point didn't come across properly. Me personally, I prefer to keep the org complexity down and externalize some headcaches if I can. Having to also manage hardware, people that manage this hardware and not being able to keep other people liable for a given SLA. It's just yet another thing that other companies are really good at and for me it's just not worth it to do on our own. If I don't really need it, why would I? And again, there are more costs associated with this approach than just infra vs hardware + people costs.
Granted, I'm never using edge/runner stuff and choosing the stack from the get go as something performant. I'm also talking about headcount < 100, which I also prefer to stay that way.
In short: it's not the background (I'm not the one directly managing hardware anyway!), but the upside is not enough for the risk, costs and headaches in general. You need to have a real good use case to do CoLo/DC. If you build web software, you probably don't need it.
I believe in the article they clearly say they just use colo, not running own DCs
> I wanna focus on software, not also having to manage hardware lifecycles, fire stuff, more engineers etc. etc. You deal with enough complexity nowadays already.
This looks strange to me, to focus on software but not on company goals, one of them quite often is to increase profits/decrease spending. Focus on software may happen on lower level of responsibility from my PoV.
No offense, but for me it sounds like someone having talent for bakery and cooking, decided to open franchise of McDonald's, becoming General Manager of that shop and then suddenly says - I wanna focus on burgers only, not hire/fire workers.