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Comment by paukiatwee | Hacker News Reader

For anyone who interested in ML/DL on cloud.

Google Cloud Platform just released Cloud ML beta with different pricing model, see https://cloud.google.com/ml/

Cloud ML costing $0.49/hour to $36.75/hour, compared to AWS $0.900/hour to $14.400/hour

The huge different of $36.75/hour (Google) compared to $14.400/hour (AWS) make me wonder what Cloud ML are using, they mentioned GPU (TPU?) but not exact GPU model.

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There are two issues, Google offers a black box service where your Tensor Flow model gets optimized. While AWS offers a generic instance which is far more flexible and can be used with multiple frameworks. Second AWS offers spot pricing on GPU instances (though not on P2 instances yet) which can offer significant discount depending on the type of workload.

I would say that while I still have to evaluate Google Cloud ML, AWS offers a far far better experience and cost effectiveness.

They already offer spot p2 instances, although I think the main spot pricing history widget isn't up to date yet. The current minimum spot price seems to be 0.09 USD/hour for a p2.2xlarge, and there have already been steep price fluctuations for p2.16xlarges in the past hour.

Oh wow they do, 0.09$ per hour thats cool! Hopefully it will take another week for others to transfer their models from g2 instances, should reduce price pressure!

I tried using google cloud (switching from AWS) a few months ago and it was the worst user experience I've ever had trying to use any software / dev environment. The UI was far worse than windows 98, and horribly confusing. And I got the impression you can only run standard tensorflow libraries, without any modification. I needed to run a modified version of tensorflow so it was a massive waste of time.

I couldn't believe how much better AWS is for running TensorFlow models than Google Cloud.

Are you talking about the Cloud ML service that was in private Alpha? Would love to hear if your opinion has changed now that it's Beta. Alpha products tend to have rough edges all around.

(work at GCP)

Speaking of... where are GCP GPU instances, without Cloud ML?

Is it possible to run customized (ie, recompiled, with new C code embedded) TensorFlow instances in it now? without that there's no point in looking.

Thanks for replying.

For some definition of "release". This is something they've had in beta for a while, and its only accessible to people who are already in the "beta" program for cloud ML. Unlike AWS which offers it _now_.

I believe previously is "alpha" release that required signup invitation form. Now "beta" release is open to anyone with Google Account.

Do you have a link you can point us to to validate that?

https://cloud.google.com/blog/big-data/2016/09/google-cloud-...

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