So in gitlabs case, they have a load that they can monitor and predict. They are looking at 60+ processors, so they can plan to add 10% (6 procs at a time) and grow. They know their load, so the likely need to spin 150% of current capacity isn't something on their plan. I'll give you that there are companies that have erratic loads that are hard to predict, they make sense to place in something that can grow 100% on an email.
Big companies, most of their servers have a pretty stable load, it's unlikely things like internal email, Sharepoint, ERP/MAP systems will take a spike. It's only things like front end order processing that takes the hit.
There are lots of businesses that make sense and some that don't
I like the concept of "racing to the bottom" but they are still making money. But lets take your comment of the Value Added Services other than the ability to spin up capacity. What's the cost to Gitlab to pull this together and keep it running? There is an overflow every day on HN articles about operations monitors, containers, network monitoring. The tools are there, its an effort to glue them together, but then they are there.
So I'll still posit there is cases that the dollars to own are less than the dollars to rent. And I'll agree with your cases of rent because of capacity blowouts is key. The issue, is your ops team savvy enough to figure out what to keep/own, what to rent?
Big companies, most of their servers have a pretty stable load, it's unlikely things like internal email, Sharepoint, ERP/MAP systems will take a spike. It's only things like front end order processing that takes the hit.
There are lots of businesses that make sense and some that don't
I like the concept of "racing to the bottom" but they are still making money. But lets take your comment of the Value Added Services other than the ability to spin up capacity. What's the cost to Gitlab to pull this together and keep it running? There is an overflow every day on HN articles about operations monitors, containers, network monitoring. The tools are there, its an effort to glue them together, but then they are there.
So I'll still posit there is cases that the dollars to own are less than the dollars to rent. And I'll agree with your cases of rent because of capacity blowouts is key. The issue, is your ops team savvy enough to figure out what to keep/own, what to rent?