> You can very comfortably have instant and virtually unlimited snapshots with zfs/jails
Yes, but that both requires manual scripting it and remains local to the server. Compare to scheduled RDS backups which go to S3 with all its consistency guarantees.
> There is a lot of choices for configuration management (saltstack, chef, ansible, ..)
Sure, those are an improvement over doing things manually. But for the recovery they can do only so much. Basically think how fast can you restore service if your rack goes up in flames.
> I don't know what this is, but I'm curious and looking it up :D
It means - who deals with kernel, SSL, storage, etc. updates, who updates the firmware, who monitors SMART alerts. How much time do you spend on that machine which is not 100% related to the database behaviour.
I wasn't recommending everyone use RDS. If your use case is ok with a laptop-level reliability, go for it! You simply can't compare the cost of RDS to a monthly cost of a colo server - they're massively different things.
Thank you very much for this reply! Those are all very good points. You’re right, this is a service, and not having the worry about hardware or scripts at all is valuable when you have a million other things to manage.
Yes, but that both requires manual scripting it and remains local to the server. Compare to scheduled RDS backups which go to S3 with all its consistency guarantees.
> There is a lot of choices for configuration management (saltstack, chef, ansible, ..)
Sure, those are an improvement over doing things manually. But for the recovery they can do only so much. Basically think how fast can you restore service if your rack goes up in flames.
> I don't know what this is, but I'm curious and looking it up :D
It means - who deals with kernel, SSL, storage, etc. updates, who updates the firmware, who monitors SMART alerts. How much time do you spend on that machine which is not 100% related to the database behaviour.
I wasn't recommending everyone use RDS. If your use case is ok with a laptop-level reliability, go for it! You simply can't compare the cost of RDS to a monthly cost of a colo server - they're massively different things.