Amazon Investing $4 Billion - Setting up A Datacentre Region in Calgary

[McG]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

I so wish I understood even half of this

Sorry I usually explain it better when I can wave my hands around.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by McG

Sorry I usually explain it better when I can wave my hands around.

Nah. I'm just a Luddite

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by McG

Financially, cloud can eliminate capital costs and replace them with operating costs which is usually beneficial to accountants. Imagine never buying hardware again and only paying for what you use instead of trying to guess your environment.

Turning CapEx into OpEx keeps getting thrown around by the cloud sales teams as some kind of kool aid but cloud is not necessarily cheaper in its current state even though some accounting practices might prefer this.

It's basically the subscription model of where everything is going these days. I have heard plenty of stories from vendors and majors in town who went cloud and then turned back around because the cost is so easy to spiral. They make it extremely easy to commit and add to your monthly bill but don't make any of the billing transparent.

[McG]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Turning CapEx into OpEx keeps getting thrown around by the cloud sales teams as some kind of kool aid but cloud is not necessarily cheaper in its current state even though some accounting practices might prefer this.

It's basically the subscription model of where everything is going these days. I have heard plenty of stories from vendors and majors in town who went cloud and then turned back around because the cost is so easy to spiral. They make it extremely easy to commit and add to your monthly bill but don't make any of the billing transparent.

I'll lead with a YMMV.

Capex v opex isn't a cost argument; it is an accounting treatment argument. The idea is that instead of buying servers and related gear which is obviously scored as capital to get the depreciation, cloud is scored as a pay as you go model, which for most organizations, is operating and usage is scored by transactions and data ingress/egress. Some organizations need the depreciation offered by hardware acquisition, some do not. Some want to tie computing costs to operating costs of the business, others do not. it is an accounting treatment discussion, and not a "cost of cloud" argument.

I don't know about billing not being transparent though; I find the detail to be too much sometimes!

When I did the ROI, I definitely focused on not just using someone else's hardware. I'm finding that the older applications/databases are the hardest to move beyond the "well, it was cheaper on premise" argument. VMware applications are the hardest because it is already a virtual environment, and running on another virtual environment may not make a lot of sense.

But definitely a YMMV thing that requires IT and accounting/financial acumen.

[I_H8_Crawford]

Originally Posted by McG

I'll lead with a YMMV.

Capex v opex isn't a cost argument; it is an accounting treatment argument. The idea is that instead of buying servers and related gear which is obviously scored as capital to get the depreciation, cloud is scored as a pay as you go model, which for most organizations, is operating and usage is scored by transactions and data ingress/egress. Some organizations need the depreciation offered by hardware acquisition, some do not. Some want to tie computing costs to operating costs of the business, others do not. it is an accounting treatment discussion, and not a "cost of cloud" argument.

I don't know about billing not being transparent though; I find the detail to be too much sometimes!

When I did the ROI, I definitely focused on not just using someone else's hardware. I'm finding that the older applications/databases are the hardest to move beyond the "well, it was cheaper on premise" argument. VMware applications are the hardest because it is already a virtual environment, and running on another virtual environment may not make a lot of sense.

But definitely a YMMV thing that requires IT and accounting/financial acumen.

Another aspect is because cloud is much easier to configure and run, it saves companies the cost of hiring a bunch of people to manage their on-prem equipment.

Not a great message to people currently doing that work, but definitely a consideration when I am talking to CIOs and CFOs.

[Northendzone]

so i finally got around to looking up how many sq km's 1200 hectares is and like i assumed it is 12.

quite the footprint of airable farmland to be green.

[Shazam]

Just FYI, AWS already has a presence here (so does MS), I have a few colleagues that work at AWS Calgary.

And yes they pay quite well as IT skills have been in great demand for many years now.

If iggi_io could list all the occupations that do pay well in other industries that would be great.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by McG

I'll lead with a YMMV.

Capex v opex isn't a cost argument; it is an accounting treatment argument. The idea is that instead of buying servers and related gear which is obviously scored as capital to get the depreciation, cloud is scored as a pay as you go model, which for most organizations, is operating and usage is scored by transactions and data ingress/egress. Some organizations need the depreciation offered by hardware acquisition, some do not. Some want to tie computing costs to operating costs of the business, others do not. it is an accounting treatment discussion, and not a "cost of cloud" argument.

I don't know about billing not being transparent though; I find the detail to be too much sometimes!

When I did the ROI, I definitely focused on not just using someone else's hardware. I'm finding that the older applications/databases are the hardest to move beyond the "well, it was cheaper on premise" argument. VMware applications are the hardest because it is already a virtual environment, and running on another virtual environment may not make a lot of sense.

But definitely a YMMV thing that requires IT and accounting/financial acumen.

Who on earth wants depreciation? It'd be much better to be able to expense equipment at time of purchase rather than over three years, which is why companies lease stuff with zero residual so at least the cash flow matches accrual.

Running stuff on on-prem is a huge, huge PITA.

[Shazam]

The solar thing is greatly exaggerated. It's not really a viable source of power.

Check this page at 9am in the morning tomorrow...

http://ets.aeso.ca/ets_web/ip/Market...DReportServlet

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

so i finally got around to looking up how many sq km's 1200 hectares is and like i assumed it is 12.

quite the footprint of airable farmland to be green.

Not really.
There are about 13 Million cultivated hectares of land in Alberta.
And another 8 Million of pasture land.
So even if you assumed they were putting this somewhere that someone was growing corn or something, that would only be about
0.009% of the cultivated land in Alberta.

I think we can spare it.

[Northendzone]

ok, so that is 12 sq kms for a place that will host some equipment and what 1,000 ee's?

how about building an array for provost, brooks or drum?

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

ok, so that is 12 sq kms for a place that will host some equipment and what 1,000 ee's?

how about building an array for provost, brooks or drum?

Strawmaning and Cherry picking problems with solar is a bad look this day in age.

We aren't looking for any one solution, our energy infrastructure needs to include many different things. Like it or not solar will be one of them for many good reasons, and O&G will play an ever declining role for pretty much the rest of history (at least and of our histories). If you're not starting in a place of acceptance about those simple truths, your just screaming at the wall.

If you're worried about land use, start railing against organic food and anti-GMO activists, they're on a different scale for land waste.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Just FYI, AWS already has a presence here (so does MS), I have a few colleagues that work at AWS Calgary.

And yes they pay quite well as IT skills have been in great demand for many years now.

If iggi_io could list all the occupations that do pay well in other industries that would be great.

Um…what?

[OldDutch]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Who on earth wants depreciation? It'd be much better to be able to expense equipment at time of purchase rather than over three years, which is why companies lease stuff with zero residual so at least the cash flow matches accrual.

Running stuff on on-prem is a huge, huge PITA.

Every publicly traded commodity company that I have worked IT in.

I have seen the following. You want CapEx, fill yer boots. Oh you want some Opex? no way we can afford that.

Hence why contractors are plenty and employees are few.

Cause shareholders hate overhead.

Maybe just me.

[81MC]

Originally Posted by #-3

...
If you're worried about land use, start railing against organic food and anti-GMO activists, they're on a different scale for land waste.

90% of America’s crop land is gmo, majority of which is used for livestock feed. It sure as #### is not organic produce eaters that are leading ‘land waste’ (as if actually growing food that goes into our mouths is land ‘waste’.)

[Leondros]

Originally Posted by OldDutch

Every publicly traded commodity company that I have worked IT in.

I have seen the following. You want CapEx, fill yer boots. Oh you want some Opex? no way we can afford that.

Hence why contractors are plenty and employees are few.

Cause shareholders hate overhead.

Maybe just me.

No you are absolutely correct. All shareholders and analysts care about in commodity extraction is funds flow and EBITDA. Both of those metrics are normalized for depreciation/depletion. Shazam has no idea what they are talking about.

[burn_this_city]

Biggest agriculture land waste is probably biofuels production.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Leondros

No you are absolutely correct. All shareholders and analysts care about in commodity extraction is funds flow and EBITDA. Both of those metrics are normalized for depreciation/depletion. Shazam has no idea what they are talking about.

I'm no-longer working in O&G but even in a new sector, capital expenditures are considered "investments" but operating costs are considered the devil and that line item must be cut as much as possible every month. We don't lease anything for that reason.

Every month we still get asked why our IT bill is so high after moving to the cloud. Nobody sees that they have avoided huge capital spend on refresh cycles every 3 years and that staffing has been pushed more to the development side than infrastructure.

[para transit fellow]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

so i finally got around to looking up how many sq km's 1200 hectares is and like i assumed it is 12.

quite the footprint of airable farmland to be green.

to give folks an idea of the amount of area, here is a map of Calgary's recent (oct 2021) annexation request for some 4000 acres / 1600 hectares

https://www.rockyview.ca/Portals/0/F...d-Area-Map.png

(note: a previous version had me describing the mapped area as 4000 hectares)

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Leondros

No you are absolutely correct. All shareholders and analysts care about in commodity extraction is funds flow and EBITDA. Both of those metrics are normalized for depreciation/depletion. Shazam has no idea what they are talking about.

It varies by public/private company and their goals. Private companies who aren't trying to put out a big profit number may want OPEX because its 100% tax deductible when incurred. Public companies or private companies that are worried about profitability may prefer CAPEX since it doesn't impact profit fully in the year incurred.