Every guide, one page.
No dropdown, no search box, no hunting. All 22 pieces, grouped by the fork they belong to.
Move it at all?
What Moving to the Cloud Actually MeansA plain-mechanics explainer of what physically and logically changes when workloads move to a hyperscaler — compute, networking, storage, and the dependency chain. Written to replace the marketing version of this story with the operational one.By the ExtraSys desk · Move it at all? · 5 min read
The Lift-and-Shift TrapAn argument about why moving a workload without redesigning it typically produces the worst of both worlds — cloud cost without cloud benefit. Walks through what typically goes wrong and why it keeps happening.By the ExtraSys desk · Move it at all? · 3 min read
How a Hyperscaler's Datacentre Differs from YoursA comparative piece on physical and operational differences — power redundancy, network topology, hardware refresh cycles, and what those differences do and do not mean for a tenant. Not a pitch for cloud; a factual contrast.By the ExtraSys desk · Move it at all? · 3 min read
Shared Responsibility, Drawn PlainlyA walk-through of the shared responsibility model — what the provider owns, what the tenant owns, and where most incidents fall — using the three main service models as the frame. Avoids presenting any division as sufficient security.By the ExtraSys desk · Move it at all? · 2 min read
Rent what?
IaaS, PaaS, SaaS — Where the Line Actually SitsAn explainer that uses the control-versus-convenience axis to define the three models, then shows the line is not fixed — managed services blur it deliberately. Written for someone who knows the acronyms but uses them imprecisely.By the ExtraSys desk · Rent what? · 4 min read
Serverless Is Not No ServerCorrects the most common misconception about function-as-a-service: the server exists, you just lost visibility of it, and that loss has real operational consequences. Covers cold starts, execution limits, and state management plainly.By the ExtraSys desk · Rent what? · 2 min read
The Managed Database BargainA piece about what you give up when you hand database operations to a cloud provider — tuning access, storage internals, some failure modes — and whether the operational relief is worth it. Structured as a genuine trade-off, not a recommendation.By the ExtraSys desk · Rent what? · 4 min read
Containers vs. Functions — A Real ChoiceA comparison piece that maps containers and serverless functions against workload characteristics — run duration, invocation pattern, state requirements, cold-path tolerance — to show which fits which rather than declaring a winner.By the ExtraSys desk · Rent what? · 4 min read
Object Storage: What It Is NotAn argument from the negative — defining object storage by what engineers keep trying to use it as (a filesystem, a database, a low-latency cache) and why those uses fail. Short, blunt, useful.By the ExtraSys desk · Rent what? · 2 min read
Pay for what?
The Idle TaxExplains why running infrastructure that is not doing work is the single most common source of cloud overspend — how idle compute, over-provisioned memory, and forgotten snapshots accumulate into real cost. The flagship billing piece.By the ExtraSys desk · Pay for what? · 6 min read
Egress — the Charge Nobody Plans ForA practical explainer of data-transfer pricing: why moving data out of a cloud costs money, how cross-region and internet egress are priced differently, and why this asymmetry is structural rather than accidental.By the ExtraSys desk · Pay for what? · 2 min read
Reserved vs. On-Demand — the Real MathsA walk-through of the commitment-discount mechanism — what you are actually buying with a reservation, what happens when your workload changes, and the break-even logic that makes or breaks the decision. Uses illustrative ratios, not invented figures.By the ExtraSys desk · Pay for what? · 3 min read
How a Bill Becomes a SurpriseA narrative walk-through of a typical billing shock — the sequence of decisions, defaults, and missing alerts that produces it — told as a mechanism rather than a cautionary tale. Shows where the instrumentation gaps usually are.By the ExtraSys desk · Pay for what? · 3 min read
Spot Instances — What You Are Actually BuyingExplains the preemption model: that a spot instance is spare capacity rented at a discount with the provider's right to reclaim it, and what workload characteristics make that tolerable or ruinous. No price figures; mechanism only.By the ExtraSys desk · Pay for what? · 2 min read
When it breaks?
What an Availability Zone Actually IsAn explainer of the physical and network isolation that AZs are designed to provide — and the failure modes they explicitly do not protect against. Covers the distinction between zone failure and regional failure without invented SLA figures.By the ExtraSys desk · When it breaks? · 4 min read
The Shared-Fate ProblemAn argument about why distributing workloads across AZs or regions does not guarantee independence — shared control planes, common dependencies, and blast-radius patterns that cross zone boundaries. Sceptical, evidence-reasoned.By the ExtraSys desk · When it breaks? · 4 min read
RTO and RPO Without the JargonA plain-language explainer of recovery time and recovery point objectives — what they measure, how they are set, and why stated targets are often not tested. Short and useful for decision-makers who have seen the terms but not been given honest definitions.By the ExtraSys desk · When it breaks? · 2 min read
Why Multi-Region Is Harder Than It SoundsA long argument that multi-region deployment is often proposed as a solution without accounting for the data-consistency, latency, and operational complexity costs it introduces — and that those costs can exceed the risk being mitigated.By the ExtraSys desk · When it breaks? · 6 min read
The Anatomy of a Cloud Outage PostmortemA structural walk-through of how major cloud providers publish postmortems — what they disclose, what they consistently omit, and how to read between the lines to understand actual failure causation.By the ExtraSys desk · When it breaks? · 4 min read
Or don't
When On-Premises WinsAn honest accounting of the workload characteristics — sustained high utilisation, strict data-residency requirements, predictable cost ceilings — where running your own hardware remains the rational choice. Written without nostalgia or anti-cloud axe-grinding.By the ExtraSys desk · Or don't · 3 min read
The Repatriation ArgumentAn explainer of cloud repatriation — moving workloads back on-premises or to colocation — covering the conditions under which it makes sense, what the transition costs look like in structure, and why it is more common than the industry acknowledges.By the ExtraSys desk · Or don't · 4 min read
Latency Is PhysicsA short, blunt piece about the speed-of-light constraint: what distance means for round-trip time, why a regional cloud endpoint is not equivalent to local infrastructure for latency-sensitive workloads, and which classes of application this actually affects.By the ExtraSys desk · Or don't · 2 min read