Rideshare Giant Grab Moves 200 Macs Out of the Cloud, Expects To Save $2.4 Million (theregister.com)
- Reference: 0179994706
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/11/07/1432254/rideshare-giant-grab-moves-200-macs-out-of-the-cloud-expects-to-save-24-million
- Source link: https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/07/grab_macos_cloud_repatriation_savings
> Grab is Southeast Asia's leading rideshare and food delivery outfit and therefore needs to build apps for iOS to connect with customers. In [2]a Thursday post , the company explains it builds those apps using Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery/Deployment (CI/CD) infrastructure that runs on Apple Mac computers.
>
> The company started with a single on-prem Mac Pro -- its post shows 2013's cylindrical model based around an Intel Xeon processor -- but eventually reached over 200 Macs, running in the cloud at an unnamed US cloud provider. "At the beginning, it was a no-brainer to rent when our demand for macOS hardware increased from 1 Mac Pro to 20 times that size," Grab's post explains. "However, when that grew to over 200 machines, the total cost became significant."
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/07/grab_macos_cloud_repatriation_savings
[2] https://engineering.grab.com/mac-cloud-exit
Interesting decisions (Score:2)
There are some interesting development environment decisions going on over at "Grab".
Re: (Score:2)
Such as "why the hell are they using Macs in the cloud as their server platform"
Seriously, the reason why there are so-called "hosted Macs" in the cloud is so you can develop and test shit on a Mac without buying one. Use actual server technologies for your servers.
Cloud computing is one the dumbest ideas ever..... (Score:1)
You mean if you admin your own machines on your own premise you can save a metric shitton of money at scale by not paying a markup on absolutely every part of your operation? You don't say!? Shocking.
Of all the foolishness I've seen to kick ourselves in the shins, cost way too much, and result in much less control and stability: "Cloud" computing definitely takes the cake.
Re: Cloud computing is one the dumbest ideas ever. (Score:2)
Repatriation makes sense for expensive edge cases, like running Apple hardware (which is a questionable architectural decision). Short of that the average cloud environment is significantly more secure, and much easier to scale in than self hosted infrastructure...until you get a very large footprint. The generation of cloud-phobic infrastructure people from around the early 2010s largely either adopted the cloud or found other work within that decade. Same was true for the prior generation of anti-vir
They could save a lot more (Score:2)
If cost savings is the goal, they could save a lot more by switching to Windows, or better yet, Linux.
This seems weird, I've never heard of a company using Macs as servers. Desktops, yes, but servers?
Re: They could save a lot more (Score:3)
They were being used just for IOS app development. You can't build for IOS without using Macs.
Re: (Score:2)
That makes sense.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple used to make dedicated server hardware, as well as a server version of the OS. It's all been around as a long time.
From the article, it sounds like they were using Mac Mini Servers, a sort of light weight server version of the regular Mac Mini. There wasn't too much service specific about them though, unlike the real hardware they used to make with redundant power supplies, Ethernet cards, drives, etc.
Not a lot (Score:3)
Less than a million a year is nothing for a company at that scale, the move was probably motivated by control/data security reasons.
"Super app" ? (Score:1)
"Singaporean super-app company Grab"
So yhey do rideshare and food delivery. How the fuck does that make them a "super-app" company ?
Ah, the Register. Full of shit they never correct.
Link to news sites for news, not joke sites.
Wrong business (Score:1)
Wow, I'm in the wrong business. Buy 200 mini-macs for less than $200k and charge $2.4 million for 3 years? This would be about $4 million for a 5-year hardware lifetime. I realize there are additional costs, such as power and network costs, but they said they are "saving" this much money, so doesn't enter the cost. I'm also wondering why developers would be using mini-macs in the clouds and not a desktop? You can have Mac desktop development, but still use Linux machines for things like git, email, sto
MacMiniColo (Score:1)
I'm guessing they've been using MacMiniColo. Super convenient to set up and run, but kinda pricey. According to the article they'll still be using Mac minis, but buying them and then running them in a Malaysian data center.
USD 4000 per year per Mac mini? (Score:2)
Just the savings...
Fire all those "managers" for more savings.
Mac Mini servers are the worst idea ever (Score:2)
Those ridiculous Mac Mini servers were the worst idea ever.
Re: (Score:3)
I dunno about the servers, but as a desktop machine, they're pretty awesome for their intended use case.
I replaced my 2014 unit this year, after 10 years of continuous use. I could have kept using it too. But I'm expecting to be dead soon and I don't want to leave my wife with an old machine, so I replaced it this year with a new one. This would will easily keep her "in business" for another ten years.
I still have its predecessor. I'll probably set it up for our 9 year old to use.
Re: (Score:2)
> But I'm expecting to be dead soon
I hope you are wrong about that.
Re: (Score:2)
Even those mini computers often have better performance than laptops.
Re: (Score:2)
For many home users, "performance" doesn't even matter. I mean, how much "performance" does someone need for a web browser, email, Word and maybe Excel? Anything on the market will do.
My Mini has an "M2" processor, 32gb of memory, 1TB of internal storage, and two 32" screens. It's capable of doing way more than anything I need it to do. I guess time flies, as I see I got it in Dec 2023. It was my 2012 laptop that I replaced this year. My bad memory (;
Re: (Score:3)
I've run many Mac servers over the years and the hardware just keeps on chugging away. Web, email, even DNS (at one time) I typically don't retire a Mac until it's 8-10 years old. I have a couple at home right now running SurgeMail. Never give me a lick of trouble.