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

530 points · 452 comments · berkeleyjunk

  1. bojangleslover · · focus · HN ↗
    I think people are overthinking this. I'm the first one to criticize AWS (I run a competitor, carolinacloud.io) but I don't think we should hold it against them when they lost data due to their hard drives being physically bombed.
    1. paulddraper · · focus · HN ↗
      Of course not.

      The surprising thing is that multiple availability zones were bombed simultaneously.

      And to my knowledge, they haven’t even yet said 2+ AZs were compromised.

      1. TeMPOraL · · focus · HN ↗
        Turns out that "availability zones" in cloud parlance seem to have nothing to do with geographical availability. Apparently they're logical splits and are more about billing than anything.
        1. paulddraper · · focus · HN ↗
          > An Availability Zone is one or more discrete data centers with separate and redundant power infrastructure, networking, and connectivity in an AWS Region. Availability Zones in a Region are meaningfully distant from each other, up to 60 miles (~100 km) to prevent correlated failures, but close enough to use synchronous replication with single-digit millisecond latency.

          &gt; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.aws.amazon.com&#x2F;whitepapers&#x2F;latest&#x2F;aws-fault-isolation-boundaries&#x2F;availability-zones.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.aws.amazon.com&#x2F;whitepapers&#x2F;latest&#x2F;aws-fault-iso...

          They are far enough apart that tornados, floods, and fires cannot simultaneously impact multiple.

          1. Game_Ender · · focus · HN ↗
            10s of miles is close enough that they are functionally in the same place in a military context though. The latest cheap massive wave attack drones fly hundreds of miles and hour which puts the DCs less than a minute apart by flight time. This means if you want protection against those risks you have to use multiple regions instead of, or in addition to multiple AZs.
            1. [deleted] · · focus · HN ↗

              [deleted]

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