The last time I did the math a reasonable highly available setup was $1-3m CapEx per data center, I’d want no less than three. That’s 30kw worth of gear per for a total of 90kw at ~$180/kw MRC if I’m lucky plus transit fees, so $20k a month.
Doable, but it’s a hell of a lot of hassle and that CapEx is huge for a startup.
I’d go bare metal in a second for any kind of cost conscious business that needed scale and had established revenue.
In the case of a startup, the question is just the opposite. It’s about moving fast and being nimble more than it is about worrying about a distant future where lock-in could possibly be an issue. I would be all in on leveraging as many of the services that the cloud provider offers and where they could take care of the “undifferentiated heavy lifting”.
Doable, but it’s a hell of a lot of hassle and that CapEx is huge for a startup.
I’d go bare metal in a second for any kind of cost conscious business that needed scale and had established revenue.