Been there…
I thought my API keys were expired, I regenerated them, changed a couple of things, checked all API calls to see if they changed API itself…then I searched the exact error and found out.
For such a breaking change to the API, was it hard to drop an email to every account not meeting the damn “requirements” with an API call performed in the last x months, to alert of the change?
Yep, I like bunny in fact. It didn’t have all the features I needed back then, but it’s a very good product, I heard very good things.
I also agree about the pricing. I ended up not using desec.io, but if I did, I would have probably set a 1-2 Euros recurring donation, as I feel that’s a totally acceptable price.
As for why people use GoDaddy well… I feel personally attacked as that’s exactly how I ended up there, when I didn’t know better.
I also use porkbun, their API is not a masterpiece but it works and allows you to get, set and update records. In fact their API is now supported by some of the common ddns scripts out there.
I think I used it in the past. Is the one where every X months you need to go the the console and confirm the domain is still used, right?
I think nowadays there are better options (incl. Free) with less maintenance and more flexibility
That’s a very interesting gotcha. They don’t seem to support address ranges either. Unless once you add the whitelist the requests still work from any address (their documentation is ambiguous). This is even more confusing.
Desec.io is a good option. To be honest using cloudflare just for DNS is completely OK. It’s not a service that allows spying on you or consolidates their monopoly.
I also migrated everything to Porkbun. Gandi used to be good too, we used it extensively at work in my previous org (~3 years ago).
Is the whole sector regressing? It seems these companies aren’t happy just earning a profit based on the service they offer. There is always something “more” that they need to do. Often this makes the experience worse. Meh.
Super happy with Porkbun BTW, it just works, does what it’s needed and I found the renewals to be 50% cheaper compared to GoDaddy…
I found it on their FAQ.
Yes, it is generally less restrictive, but… I have 4 domains, and now I have renewed all of them for the maximum amount. They will all expire after 2033. So unless I decide to add more domains (which is unlikely), I won’t spend a cent in the next ~9 years. I wonder if they really enforce it as it is written or they consider still the renewal an expense “split” over the duration.
Still, I really don’t understand. You can - and should - have proper rate limits on the API. You have API keys that uniquely identify the source, what is “the abuse” they are trying to prevent this way…?
$20/month for a service that anyway is low traffic (especially for hobbyists) is a completely insane price. Even more insane is that their cheapest subscription still doesn’t offer any API access. I agree anyway, but are these staying in business just because they have a consolidated market share? Do they have access to more TLDs? I don’t know, I am genuinely confused. I have absolutely no reason whatsoever to even think of using GoDaddy again.
NameCheap
WOW! I did not know that. I just checked and after a little search:
We have certain requirements for activation to prevent system abuse. In order to have API enabled, your account should meet one of the following requirements:
- have at least 20 domains under your account;
- have at least $50 on your account balance;
- have at least $50 spent within the last 2 years
$50 in last 2 years is not much, but for those who renew for many years, it is still stupid.
Ironically, Namecheap is what the people in https://github.com/navilg/godaddy-ddns/issues/32 migrated to!
I really wish that domain registration was done in a different way, but even in current scenario, gutting features for such a basic service to extract a few bucks and risking losing customers…?
Oh Yeah, Porkbun does have API (it seems since sometime last year? ). I think also Cloudflare, Namecheap and many others do too.
I agree about GoDaddy. It was an original sin for me to use them years ago, and I was lazy with just one domain that I use for most of my emails etc. I deferred the move for a while and then - how it often happens - I had to do it in “emergency” mode.
ClouDNS
I think I heard of it. I think most DDNS scripts support a lot of registrars as well, if one doesn’t want to go with full DNS hosting.
In case of DNS hosting (I also linked it in the post, but it’s a good shotout), there is desec.io too. EU-hosted, free (although donations are highly encouraged) and has a tons of features! There is also a Terraform provider!
Yeah, indeed. To me is still completely absurd. At this point is not just a bad registrar, for most of us (hobbyists), I think it’s a completely non-functional option. Basically every competitor offers an API.
I stuck with them out of lazyness for far too long.
Thanks for the feedback, and same to @[email protected] and @[email protected]. I fixed the configuration of the site and now the site should be readable even in light mode.
I am sorry! As an amateur landscape photographer I actually like very much those clouds. There are a few r-word posts about people hating those clouds though, but I checked and they are nowhere near as long as you would expect a proper rant to be
In most cases! Sorry, I simply don’t believe it. Once you operate for 5, 10, 20 years not having capitalized anything is expensive as hell, even without the skill issue (which is not a great argument, as it is the case for almost anything).
It’s almost always the case with rent vs invest.
Do you have some numbers?
I cite a couple of articles in the post, and here is a nice list of companies and orgs that run outside the Cloud (it’s a bit old!) or decided to move away. Many big companies with their own DC, which is not surprising, but also smaller (Wikipedia!).
37signals also showed a huge amount of savings (it’s one of the two links in the post) moving away from the cloud. Do you have any similar data that shows the opposite (like we saved X after going cloud)? I am genuinely curious
Edit: here is another one https://tech.ahrefs.com/how-ahrefs-saved-us-400m-in-3-years-by-not-going-to-the-cloud-8939dd930af8 Looking solely at the compute resources, there was an order of magnitude of difference between cloud costs and hosting costs (x11). Basically a value comparable (in reality double) to the whole revenue of the company.
I will have a look if there is something that suggests how to “make” a light theme. Thanks for the info!
Redundancy should be automatic. Raid5 for instance.
Yeah it should, but something needs to implement that. I mean, when distributed systems work redundancy is automatic, but they can also fail. We are talking about redundancy implemented via software, and software has bugs, always. I am not saying that it can’t be achieved, of course it can, but it has a cost.
You can have an oracle (or postgres, or mongo) DB with multi region redundancy, encryption and backups with a click.
I know, and if you don’t understand all that complexity you can still fuckup your postgres DB in a disastrous way. That’s the whole point of this thread. Also operators can do the same for you nowadays, but again, you need to know your systems.
Much, much simpler for a sysadmin (or an architect) than setting the simplest mysql on a VM.
Of course it is. You are paying someone else for that job. Not going to argue with that. In fact, that’s what makes it boring (which I talked about in the post).
Unless you’re in the business of configuring databases, your developers should focus on writing insurance risk code, or telco optimization, or whatever brings money.
This is a modern dogma that I simply disagree with. Building an infrastructure tailored around your needs (i.e., with all you need and nothing else) and cost effective does bring money, it does by saving costs and avoiding to spend an enormous amount of resources into renting all of that, forever, scaling with your business.
You can build a redundant system in a day like Legos, much better security and higher availability (hell, higher SLAs even) than anything a team of 5 can build in a week self-manging everything.
This is the marketing pitch. The reality is that companies still have huge teams, still have tons of incidents, still take long to deliver projects, still have security breaches, but they are spending 3, 5, 10 times as much and nothing of those money is capitalized.
I guess we fundamentally disagree, I envy you for what positive experiences you must have had!
Instant transactions are periodic, I don’t know any bank that runs them globally on one machine to compensate for time zones.
Ofc they don’t run them on one machine. I know that UK banks have only DCs in UK. Also, the daily pattern is almost identical everyday. You spec to handle the peaks, and you are good. Even if you systems are at 20% half the day everyday, you are still saving tons of money.
Batches happen at a fixed time, are idle most of the day.
Between banks, from customer to bank they are not. Also now most circuits are going toward instant payments, so the payments are settled more frequently between banks.
My experience are banks (including UK) that are modernizing, and cloud for most apps brings brutal savings if done right, or moderate savings if getting better HA/RTO.
I want to see this happening. I work for one and I see how our company is literally bleeding from cloud costs.
But that should have been a lambda function that would cost 5 bucks a day tops
One of the most expensive product, for high loads at least. Plus you need to sign things with HSMs etc., and you want a secure environment, perhaps. So I would say…it depends.
Obviously I agree with you, you need to design rationally and not just make a dummy translation of the architecture, but you are paying for someone else to do the work + the service, cloud is going to help to delegate some responsibilities, but it can’t be cheaper, especially in the long run since you are not capitalizing anything.
Yes, pretty much that. Plus some configuration might be easier with a DNS hosting. But the main benefit is decoupling domain and DNS for easier change.