"For anyone who's not used these "managed" services before, I want to add that it's still a fuck ton of work. The work shifts from "keeping X server running" to "how do I begin to configure and tune this service"."
I have noticed that too. With some managed services you are trading a set of generally understood problems with a lot of quirky behavior of the service that's very hard to debug.
I have noticed that too. With some managed services you are trading a set of generally understood problems with a lot of quirky behavior of the service that's very hard to debug.