The Sunshower.io Blog

beautifully simple application & infrastructure management

Author: sunshowerlisa

‘Cloud Management Platform’ Undersells It

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Because we need a snappy way to refer to what we do, we call ourselves a ‘cloud management platform.’ But that undersells it. Why? Because cloud management platforms and solutions are for the big guys — the ones with IT budgets the size of small countries, or at least small counties. Twee though it may sound, we want to be the great equalizer for cloud computing, supporting engineers of all stripes.

Why does this matter?

More and more, engineers aren’t coming from a Computer Science background, they’re coming from code academies or more ad hoc backgrounds (hello, yes, I majored in journalism). And even when they are, cloud computing isn’t really taught in schools. So you wind up in a job, and suddenly you have to figure out how to deploy things. Or you start a company, and you realize “wow, I can’t just have this run on my localhost.” Or maybe your infrastructure is in the cloud already, and you realize you just wasted $200 on an instance you forgot about. Or your infrastructure is in the cloud and costing you the salaries of three good engineers a month, and you have to figure out how to keep the engineers and not the cloud cost.

And so the Googling and Stack Overflowing begins, except half the information is out of date because things are always changing, and the numbers are almost always wrong because cloud service providers are constantly changing their pricing structure. And don’t even get me STARTED on how or if you should containerize your software.

It is in these moments that you wish that there was a cloud management system that could just do the thing for you — help you pick a cloud, help you migrate across clouds, help you deploy with Docker just like you had been with machine images, help you with cloud cost optimization.

And that, THAT is our why. Because no matter how new or how senior, there will be a moment when you don’t have the support you need. We didn’t pick the name ‘Sunshower’ because it was cute and fit with the cloud theme (okay, we kind of did). We picked it because dealing with the cloud shouldn’t have to be so dang hard. It should be able to be easy, and rewarding, and maybe even fun.

Need some help on the cloud? Visit us at Sunshower.io.
Spending too much on AWS? Learn more about our Anvil optimizer.

Eulogy for the Old-Fashioned: Things We’ve Innovated Out Of Existence

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As a kid, I remember having my mom drop me off at the library so I could rummage through the card catalog. I still have warm-and-fuzzy nostalgic feelings about spending hours pulling books off the shelves, checking the indexes, and finding exactly the pieces of information I needed. It’s a nice memory, but would I trade away the Internet to get another chance at flipping through musty drawers of tiny typewritten cards? No way. You’d have to be bonkers to go backwards and do research like that. I’d rather sit at home in my pajamas and access hundreds of sources online in seconds, thanks very much.

Innovation is a funny thing. We get so accustomed to doing something one way, that it never occurs to us that it could be different. Better. Think about all of the things we used to consider perfectly fine until we figured out a better way:

  • Driving to the store to rent a movie (RIP, Blockbuster)
  • Placing a personal ad in the newspaper
  • Pulling over to make call from a pay phone
  • Planning a route using a tri-fold city map
  • Sending a fax
  • Looking numbers up in the Yellow Pages
  • Listening to music on a Walkman
  • Checking out what’s on tonight in the TV Guide
  • Using a typewriter with a bottle of Wite Out handy
  • Checking spelling using a dictionary
  • Looking facts up in an encyclopedia
  • Keeping business contacts in a Rolodex
  • Calling the theater for showtimes
  • Making a mixtape

At one point, someone asked: Why isn’t there a better way? Then they changed the game.

That’s what we did for the cloud at Sunshower.io.

People used to think it was okay to be surprised by their cloud bill, or to spend hours, sometimes days, sometimes months, deploying applications. We used to find it totally acceptable to ask developers to become experts in how to deploy their software, while still … you know … finding the time to actually write said software. Not anymore. Sunshower.io has all the tools you need to work with the cloud faster, simpler, and more efficiently than ever before. We’re a cloud management platform that’s dedicated to offering better cloud resource management strategies and simple cloud cost optimization tools.

Why take a boat across the ocean when you could fly? You have stuff to do, deadlines to meet. Check out our beta on DigitalOcean to see how we can offer you a more innovative cloud management system.