[tw04]

It isn't, and it's not even close. Unless you're running at less than 40% efficiency the cloud is more expensive for infrastructure running 24/7. If you're a shop with 1 server and no IT guy? Sure, probably makes sense to use the cloud - although I'd argue you'd be better off with managed hosting so you actually have a number to call if something breaks.

An organization of even medium size? Not a chance.

[dragonwriter]

> Unless you're running at less than 40% efficiency the cloud is more expensive for infrastructure running 24/7.

Sure, paying extra for a dynamically scalable service is inefficient if your resource needs are flat 24/7/365, but is that realistically the case?

(OTOH, one must not forget that there is a cost to engineer systems to take advantage of dynamic scaling to minimize costs while meeting requirements.)

[hueving]

>Sure, paying extra for a dynamically scalable service is inefficient if your resource needs are flat 24/7/365, but is that realistically the case?

Yes, the vast majority of apps are not 12 factor architectures designed for scaling so nodes can't be brought online and killed at the flip of a switch.

[tw04]

In most enterprises yes. They've got a consistent flat workload 90% of the time. I'm willing to bet gitlab is the exact same way other than a tiny portion of the environment. And, as you mentioned, writing an app from scratch to take advantage of instant scaling is extremely difficult, and sometimes impossible depending on what statefulness is required.