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AWS says it can't restore some data from mideast facilities struck by Iran

530 points · 452 comments · berkeleyjunk

cmiles8 · 1789596948 · focus · HN ↗
This interview with an AWS leader isn’t aging well, from CBS Sunday morning:
Pogue asked, "I don't mean to give anyone ideas, but let's say I figured out that one of these unmarked buildings was an AWS data center, and I blew it up. Are you saying that it's so backed up and redundant that you probably wouldn't notice?" Wood replied, "Yeah, you wouldn't notice. I mean, we might be a bit upset, but you wouldn't notice!"
<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cloud-computing-loudoun-county-virginia/" rel="nofollow">https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cloud-computing-loudoun-county-...
1. krick · 1789598998 · focus · HN ↗
  That is actually surprising to me. Claims like that are pretty common, they make sense and they should be true, so even though I don't really know AWS (/Backblaze/Azure/whatever) redundancy planning in enough detail, I used to trust them. It's really worrying when they outright say it will be ok, and then a week later it turns out to be not ok.
  1. houssc · 1789599866 · focus · HN ↗
    The caveat is always "if you're using the service correctly" which is not necessarily free. Meaning taking advantage of multiple geo zones, building in redundancy to your stack, etc. Like everything he said is possible if your technology stack living in AWS was designed to survive it. Everyone who has ever had the "we lost your data" email from AWS knows at the end of the day the cloud is just someone else's data center with neat provisioning tools and services.
    jacquesm · 1789600529 · focus · HN ↗
    The problem is that lots of people seem to be under the impression that they are doing it right because they are using AWS. They don't realize that AWS is a toolbox, not a 'ready made solution for redundancy against all catastrophes you are possibly exposed to'. They use that to their advantage by pricing such solutions at a level that people will either pay through the nose or will be left without recourse when AWS loses their data. It's stupid, but at the same time these beliefs are surprisingly wide spread.
    houssc · 1789609705 · focus · HN ↗
    Yep, a lot of non-technical leaders believe that 'cloud' is synonymous with 'DR strategy' or even 'backup'. "We won't have to worry about being offline if our server goes down if we move to the cloud!" Some of these people fundamentally don't understand what the cloud is, their assumption is cloud means easy button that solves all your infrastructure and uptime problems.
    mhitza · 1789611671 · focus · HN ↗
    You are pointing the fingers at the wrong people. Cloud providers pushed this idea onto executives via their marketing and conferencing channels.
    Not disimilar to how AI naratives are pushed on executives these last two years.
    albert_e · 1789619313 · focus · HN ↗
    But alongside the marketing blitz they also offer certifications for people who are supposed to execute these projects. Even the most foundational certification exam -- which simply tests your recall on what AWS service is for compute versus networking -- teaches and tests you about "Shared Responsibility Model" that draws the line at what the customer is still responsible for when they use cloud bases IaaS / PaaS / SaaS services.
    If businesses are going to cloud but without engaging / listening to competent people who know these basics -- then the blame needs to be somewhat pointed back at those very business leaders I feel.
    This is not obscure magical knowledge either that is tightly controlled. Any cloud vendor will freely teach you that. Or even a google search would.
    lelanthran · 1789624050 · focus · HN ↗
    Who is a CEO going to believe? Amazon, Microsoft and the entire IT infra division or that lone SRE who disagrees with them?
    I mean, every time cloud comes up on HN we see legions of techies posting strowman arguments about why you should offload everything onto AWS, GCP, Azure, etc.
    avereveard · 1789624491 · focus · HN ↗
    Aws cto is basically opening every presentation with a everything breaks all the time slide, idk where you get that idea they oversell the cloud resilience
    silon42 · 1789629360 · focus · HN ↗
    They could offer controlled "failure of service" service where they randomly take stuff offline and you have to pay to get it back if you don't have a backup/recovery strategy.
    albert_e · 1789632783 · focus · HN ↗
    AWS Fault Injection Service
    <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/fis/" rel="nofollow">https://aws.amazon.com/fis/
    <a href="https://docs.aws.amazon.com/fis/latest/userguide/what-is.html" rel="nofollow">https://docs.aws.amazon.com/fis/latest/userguide/what-is.htm...
    scott_w · 1789637826 · focus · HN ↗
    The customer CEO never watched that presentation.
    mitxela · 1789625289 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    rob74 · 1789626739 · focus · HN ↗
    You just have to take a look at the Rube Goldberg-esque abomination that is the AWS web interface for a few minutes to realize that it's not that simple. Granted, most executives won't do that...
    jaggederest · 1789628885 · focus · HN ↗
    Or encounter their CLI and it's lovecraftian combination of positional arguments, named arguments, piping, json documents, etc, distributed largely by random lot, as far as I can tell.
    jval43 · 1789628932 · focus · HN ↗
    No. If you're the leader you should know what you're leading. It's literally the job.
    But the problem is right there: "non-technical" leaders. Never work for one if you can avoid it.
    IAmBroom · 1789665636 · focus · HN ↗
    All Tesla employees reading this are fervently agreeing, between their tears.
    "We should build vacuum delivery tubes for passengers!"

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