Something I’ve noticed with PaaS services like RDS or Azure SQL is that people arguing against it are assuming that the alternative is “competence”.
Even in a startup, it’s difficult to hire an expert in every platform that can maintain a robust, secure system. It’s possible, but not guaranteed, and may require a high pay to retain the right staff.
Many government agencies on the other hand are legally banned from offering a competitive wage, so they can literally never hire anyone that competent.
This cap on skill level means that if they do need reliable platforms, the only way they can get one is by paying 10x the real market rate for an over-priced cloud service.
These are the “whales” that are keeping the cloud vendors fat and happy.
Even in a startup, it’s difficult to hire an expert in every platform that can maintain a robust, secure system. It’s possible, but not guaranteed, and may require a high pay to retain the right staff.
Many government agencies on the other hand are legally banned from offering a competitive wage, so they can literally never hire anyone that competent.
This cap on skill level means that if they do need reliable platforms, the only way they can get one is by paying 10x the real market rate for an over-priced cloud service.
These are the “whales” that are keeping the cloud vendors fat and happy.