Looks like this AWS outage will different than others given Instagram's long down time

Instagram is one of the latest poster child's of Amazon Web Service.  Netflix being a believer in Chaos Monkey and has recovered.  Meanwhile Instagram is still down.

Tweets Top / All

 
 
51s

 I can't see all the pictures I've posted? Same with all the other peoples...but thank you for fixing it!

 
Expand
 
1m

  parts of it are.

 
 View conversation
 
1m

    Bit many and temperamental! Blooming thunderstorm! :0( xx

 
 View conversation
 
1m

 What happened to the pictures ? I can not see mine but it says how many i have

 
Expand
 
1m

    Watch TV and talk to humans?? xx

 
 View conversation

AWS has gone down before, but a big service like Instagram has not been a result of down time.  AWS is mostly up, but not all.

Jun 30, 11:42 AM PDT We are continuing to work on processing our provisioning backlog for ELB load balancers. We are also continuing to work on restoring IO for the remaining small number of stuck EBS volumes. Customer action is required for EBS volumes that do not have IO currently enabled-- if you have not already chosen to Enable Volume IO, outlined in the instructions above, please follow those steps to re-enable IO on your EBS volumes.

It will be interesting what the post mortem looks like from AWS and Instagram on what the issues are.

Microsoft joins SSD movement with an Azure cloud solution

GigaOm's Barb Darrow reports on a new SSD powered Windows Azure service.

New Windows Azure goes all-SSD to one-up Amazon in the cloud

By  Jun. 5, 2012, 2:47pm PT 3 Comments

Just when you thought the cloud computing wars couldn’t get more interesting, they do. On Wednesday, Microsoft hopes to prove Windows Azure a worthy adversary to Amazon with new solid-state storage cloud, dramatically revamped REST API, and a console to meld management of on-premises and Azure-based applications on one screen.

Two years ago I predicted SSD in AWS by summer of 2010. I was a bit ahead of the times.  It took longer than expected with AWS launching DynamoDB.  With Microsoft joining the SSD wave.  You can look for more SSD options in the cloud market.

Looks Like AWS Billing has surprises like your cell phone bill, billing alerts added

Ken Oestrich has a tweet on AWS's new billing alerts.

Heh. Got AWS Billing Alerts notice today. IMO acknowledging "Umm... you may be using more AWS than you or your org realizes" + / - ?

 
Collapse
 AWS posts on the new feature.

Monitor Estimated Charges Using Billing Alerts

Introduction
Because the AWS Cloud operates on a pay-as-you-go model, your monthly bill will reflect your actual usage. In situations where your overall consumption can vary from hour to hour, it is always a good idea to log in to the AWS portal and check your account activity on a regular basis. We want to make this process easier and simpler because we know that you have more important things to do.

To this end, you can now monitor your estimated AWS using our new billing alerts, which Amazon CloudWatch metrics and alarms.

AWS is a driven by customer requests.  Like Ken says there is a good chance that users are getting hit by higher AWS bills than they anticipated.
 
The beauty of the Cloud is it scales, but with that scale comes a higher bill.

Another way to look at why AWS gets last listing in Jeff Bezo's quarterly statements, important to a small audience

In the Data Center world we in general care more about what Amazon is doing in AWS than what is happening with the Kindle and other Amazon.com retail efforts. I've commented in the past how Amazon.com's quarterly press releases consistently list AWS last which implies it is the least important of things Jeff Bezos wants discussed.  The latest press release does the same with three items on AWS.

  •  Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced that Amazon DynamoDB – the fastest growing AWS service ever – is now available in both the EU (Ireland) andAsia Pacific(Tokyo) Regions. Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service that provides extremely fast and predictable performance with seamless scalability.
  • AWS lowered prices for the 19th time in five years by reducing reserved instance prices for Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS, as well as reducing on-demand pricing for Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS, and Amazon ElastiCache.
  • AWS launched AWS Marketplace, an online store that makes it easy for customers to find, compare, and immediately start using the software and services they need to build software systems and products, and run their businesses. With AWS Marketplace, software and SaaS providers with offerings that run in the AWS Cloud can benefit from increased awareness, simplified deployment, and automated billing. AWS Marketplace brings the same simple, trusted, and secure online shopping experience that customers enjoy onAmazon.comto software built for the AWS platform, streamlining the process of doing research and purchasing software.       

The top three items are about the Kindle. 

  •  Kindle Fire remains the #1 bestselling, most gifted, and most wished for product across the millions of items available onAmazon.comsince launch. In the first quarter, 9 out of 10 of the top sellers onAmazon.comwere digital products – Kindle, Kindle books, movies, music and apps.
  • Amazonlaunched Kindle Touch Wi-Fi and Kindle Touch 3G on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.it, and Amazon.es. The full line of Kindle e-ink readers is now available in over 175 countries around the world. Kindle Touch 3G is the most full-featured e-reader with an easy to use touchscreen and the unparalleled convenience of free 3G – no hunting for Wi-Fi spots, simply think of a book and download it. Kindle remains the bestseller on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.it and Amazon.es since their launches.
  • Amazonintroduced a new version of its popular Kindle for iPad app, which is the #5 free iPad app of all time and the #1 free books app on iPad. Millions of customers are using the new Kindle for iPad app, which is optimized for the high resolution display of the newest iPad.       

The mistake I've been making is not thinking like the general population.  The problem about talking AWS first is even though it is profitable and game and changing for Amazon, it has a much smaller audience than discussing Kindle.

Just because AWS is last on Jeff Bezos's list of things amazon.com does, doesn't mean it is the least important.  Also, with Werner Vogels managing the AWS effort, Bezos doesn't need to focus on the effort.

AWS is hiring like crazy and CTO Werner Vogels is hitting the road to recruit more people to AWS.

And that leads me to another distributed problem – finding good engineers to help AWS build the next generation of cloud computing services. We’ve got a big vision and to realize it we need to find qualified engineers to join us on our journey. A quick look at the AWS career web sites reveals that we are hiring hundreds of people around the world.

Click here for our current job openings in the U.S.

Click here for our current job openings in Europe, Asia, and South Africa

Distributed problems call for innovative solutions. So next month we will be taking a distributed approach to finding engineers who want to join AWS. On May 17th and 18th we will be traveling to Houston, Minneapolis, and Nashville to interview candidates who want to join the AWS team. If you live in or near one of those cities and are interested in a meeting with us about careers in AWS check out this page. You can also simply email your resume to aws-recruiting@amazon.com

AWS increases its hiring, 360 jobs in US, 180 jobs outside US

Werner Vogels posts on the AWS jobs available.

Do You Want to Help Build the Next AWS Service?By Werner Vogels on 19 April 2012 02:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over the past several years I’ve spent much of my time traveling around the world speaking about distributed systems. From building infinitely scalable data stores, architectures for high performance computing, to the challenges imposed by the CAP theorem, there are wonderful, complex, fascinating problems to be solved in the area of distributed computing. During my travels I’ve met thousands of brilliant engineers who are leveraging the cloud to deliver exciting new products and revolutionize IT as we know it. One thing that’s become obvious to me is that there are innovative, inspiring developers in every corner of the planet from Australia to Iceland and from Israel to Peru.

The specific jobs posts are here.

And that leads me to another distributed problem – finding good engineers to help AWS build the next generation of cloud computing services. We’ve got a big vision and to realize it we need to find qualified engineers to join us on our journey. A quick look at the AWS career web sites reveals that we are hiring hundreds of people around the world.

Click here for our current job openings in the U.S.

Click here for our current job openings in Europe, Asia, and South Africa

When you scroll through the US postings https://us-amazon.icims.com/jobs/search?pr=1&in_iframe=1. What is interesting is how many of the job positions have been opened over the past couple of weeks.

NewImage