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Ask HN: How can I outsource DevOps?
14 points by sgdesign on Feb 5, 2013 | hide | past | favorite | 21 comments
I'm wasting too much time dealing with setting up EC2 instances, configuring servers, etc.

I'm sure those things are trivial for a lot of people who do them for a living, so it seems like a good thing to outsource.

But I'm not sure where to go. oDesk? Elance? Or are there sites that specialize in this?

My ideal service would be some kind of crowdsourced technical support marketplace: I post the task I need done and people can then bid on it. Or maybe just a service that I pay $50 a month to take care of whatever problem I encounter.

Alternatively, if anybody reading this wants to become my "help, why is this thing not working!?" person feel free to get in touch via my profile.



$50 buys you a maximum of 30 minutes of an experienced person's time. And if that's your upper limit, most experienced folks won't bother.

You might find a decent person in a developing country who will trade a couple hours for that same amount, but the search will be time consuming (ergo expensive).

There is the issue of trust -- keys to the kingdom, etc. And availability -- do you need same day response time?

You might be asking for more than you're willing to pay for.

Edit: this service does exist, of course. But nowhere near your stated price point.

Edit again: you'll find that people are happy to answer your questions about how to do things, for free. But the tedious process of doing those things, and taking responsibility for the success of the actions, as defined by you -- who might not have fully specified or understood the implications of your request -- that won't be free. :)


You're right, the price of such a service would probably be much higher. If I took an audit of how much time I spend on this stuff monthly, I'm guessing paying $200-500 would not seem out of proportion. Anyway it's just speculation at this point until someone points me to/builds such a marketplace.


You're not far off. One of my customer, a startup, pays me a flat $400/m to take care of one Debian server (PostgreSQL+ Play + Lighttpd)


I'm going to make a couple of assumptions and if I'm wrong just ignore the answer. I'm assuming you are using either PHP, Python, Java, Ruby, or .Net. I'm assuming these are either web servers, worker servers, caching servers, or database servers.

With those assumptions made I'm going to suggest some services to use. I don't work for ANY of these companies. I run a small startup that uses most of these companies.

For web servers I would recommend using AWS' Elastic Beanstalk. You don't pay anything extra to use this service in addition to the EC2 servers you are using now. If you use reserved instances it is also cheaper than pretty much any other PaaS out there (Google App Engine gives it a good run for the money). Recently I did a spreadsheet outlining the savings http://goo.gl/AL5Cj. The spreadsheet was done before the most recent AWS price reductions so the m1.small prices aren't right.

For worker servers I recommend using PiCloud. You can install anything you want and they only charge you for the time your jobs use. Granted you have to use Python to interface with jobs but does that really matter in the grand scheme. I personally use Python anyways so its a bonus. Depending on the job it might be more appropriate to use AWS' Elastic MapReduce offering.

For database servers I recommend using either RDS or Xeround (http://www.xeround.com) a MySQL provider if you have to use a relational database. If you have the luxury of using a NoSQL option then use Cloudant (http://www.cloudant.com) a CouchDB DBaaS company or AWS' DynamoDB server.

For caching servers use AWS' Elasticache service or Garantia Data's (http://www.garantiadata.com) Memcached or Redis cloud.


I support this answer. The reality is that outsourcing the devops work is simply moving from IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service, e.g EC2) to PaaS (Platform as a Service, like RDS, Heroku). You just won't deal with infrastructure, servers, network or operating systems anymore.

You will lose the ability to customize or use obscure frameworks.

On the other hand, you will simply have to do operations such as "increase the number of web workers", or "add more replication for this DB" which are high level.


This is exactly why I decided to use a PaaS for matchist (http://matchist.com/talent) rather than dealing with our own dedicated or VPS or cloud.

We use Pagoda Box and love it. For the stage we're in, it's great. I can spend my time iterating the product based on customer data instead of fiddling with granular server controls.


OpDemand or perhaps putting your time momentarily into Chef might pay off? I am still skeptical about the first but it might be cheaper to start with while Chef does a fairly good job of automating provision, configuration, and integration. Problem seems to be initial setup and if you have an unconventional platform.


The best part of DevOps is Test-Driven-Development (TDD). This cannot be outsourced cheaply yet unless you know exactly what you want to do and you're able to communicate this clearly.

Just my humble opinion.


http://www.supportresort.com/plans/sysadmin/

Red Hat or Microsoft Certified syadmins for under $4 per hour, with a monthly commitment.


I'd be happy to help out dependant on your needs, feel free to ping me with further details, the sort of stack you're dealing with and your requirements etc.


I know of at least one startup focusing on DevOps for other people. http://www.opsline.com/


I am willing to work for free if you're not evil. I dont expect much in return :) other than good experience. SGlIZWxsb0JvbGtlQGdtYWlsLmNvbQ==


http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/About+Opscode+Chef


It's a steep learning curve, but Chef is totally worth learning if you want to automate ops. Use the time you're wasting on ops to learn Chef instead. If your outsourced ops guy is worth his money, he's probably going to use Chef anyway.


This. And if you don't want to go to the length of maintaining your own Chef server you can opt for hosted Chef:

http://www.opscode.com/hosted-chef/


Or puppet, which I prefer


You can't outsource your custom DevOps for that amount of money but switching to Heroku or another PAAS might be a cost effective option.


I don't think such a place exists.

Maybe it should.

But how would you ensure trust and security? This could be quite dangerous to your business...


Shameless plug...

Such a place exists: http://www.advection.net/

We do offer devops as a service, since 2003. We publish rates, though you'll find them under web development pricing.


That's definitely a concern. Can't say I have an answer, except to say that someone unqualified (in this case, me) taking care of it isn't great for security either.


Happy to help for little questions and so on... Drop me an email: [email protected]




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