Live data from Hacker News

Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

tomshardware.com

61–70 of 179 posts

Re: Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

#61
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> but it certainly is from a culture and society perspective. Like living in the 12th century except there are also shiny glass skyscrapers. I am surprised looking at this seemingly racist comment. Just because someone doesn't follow your tradition/culture doesn't mean they are living in the 12th century. There are people living everywhere in the world. Dubai is in fact very developed, and there are not just camels l…

There is nothing racist about that comment.

In those countries women are owned properties of their husbands, homosexuality is punishable by death and slavery is common.

But yeah, sure, they have a tall skyscraper so they are ok I guess.

Re: Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

#62
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone here is involved in making decisions about where to locate such centers, I'd love to hear more about how geopolitical risk factors in, and whether you plan and price out contingencies (e.g. "This is near an unstable area, worst case is we write off $###M, but after Y years it breaks even. And the site is better in these other factors than alternative Z over there..."). Is it similar to factoring for geophys…

Insurance. No need to write off anything or take a loss, just a slightly increased yearly cost. The cost of said insurance is likely going to be very high for a long time now though.

Sure, but insurance is just outsourcing that calculation to a third party. AWS is big enough that I would think they largely self-insure, though I don't know if they do.

Re: Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do Americans do what they want because they are “allowed” by gulf states?

You need to think that all the way through. The answer is obviously yes. Yemen is a perfect example. Iran is obviously as well. Afghanistan another great case. It is certainly possible to resist US pressure. Iran is asking the gulf countries to do that. Imagine how much better they would all be able to resist the US together as well, better than each alone.

The gulf countries hate Iran and have for a very very long time, longer than even the concept of the west has existed. Iran throwing around ballistic missiles is far more like a temper tantrum than a viable military strategy. And its a strategic gift to Trump. Whether he/we can take advantage of that, IDK.

Re: Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

#64
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I don't think you really understand Middle East countries. 94% of Iranians are literate. They are a very sophisticated culture that dates back to pre-history. They certainly may appear backwards from our western culture but that is only superficial. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Iran

It's possible to be both literate and backwards.

Re: Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

#65
post #4

Not to be insensitive about the humanitarian and economic situation, but, I am curious why there are data centers in that region at all? It just seems horribly inefficient from a cooling and electricity standpoint. Not to mention water. My pessimistic assumption is that Amazon said "yes" to handouts from regional government efforts to be relevant in tech, and that those data centers dont really matter to anyone but l…

Why would water for data center be an issue there? They dont need to drink it. It was business for those contries. Just like finance, travel and wgat have you.

Water is used for cooling. You take in liquid water, release water vapor, and the phase transition takes away a lot of heat. Otherwise you need to pump that heat into dry air, which is much more difficult (energy-expensive). It's the same thing you do when you sweat.

Re: Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

#66

Not to be insensitive about the humanitarian and economic situation, but, I am curious why there are data centers in that region at all? It just seems horribly inefficient from a cooling and electricity standpoint. Not to mention water. My pessimistic assumption is that Amazon said "yes" to handouts from regional government efforts to be relevant in tech, and that those data centers dont really matter to anyone but l…

My guess.

Edge compute. Data (coughlaugh) residency. Obsession with low latency on our 42Mb web pages.

Re: Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

#67
post #9

I do think there is some irony that the Iran war took down all the AWS datacenters in the middle east except the one (or 3 i guess) in Israel, which is still chugging along. Like as a strategy its kind of weird. Iran plans to force Israel to stop by wrecking the economies of a bunch of countries that are basically frenemies of Israel? I suppose its meant to pressure USA, it just seems like a terrible strategy.

Iron dome.

Re: Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

#68

Not to be insensitive about the humanitarian and economic situation, but, I am curious why there are data centers in that region at all? It just seems horribly inefficient from a cooling and electricity standpoint. Not to mention water. My pessimistic assumption is that Amazon said "yes" to handouts from regional government efforts to be relevant in tech, and that those data centers dont really matter to anyone but l…

Yes, and also pushed for by the Israeli and US governments. Tech investment is part of the Abraham Accords - i.e this is part of the prerequisites for normalization of ties with Israel.

[deleted]

Re: Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

#69
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slight tangent, but to me futuristic cities are actually places like Amsterdam, with cozy streets and bike lanes everywhere, not places like Dubai with 16-lane freeways and a quasi-slave underclass staffing the tacky malls.

If you take futuristic to mean „looking like the future“, it think the second option is sadly more futuristic for some people

Indeed, but sprawling lead-smoke infested freeways is the stuff of the 1950s; bike lanes and playgrounds and grassy tram tracks is what some cities are starting to do just now! So actually more futuristic, objectively speaking :)

Re: Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

#70
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that they don't want to hit the ones in Israel, it's that they're better defended, and further away. Bahrain to Iran is ~140 miles. Dubai is ~100 miles. Israel is closer to ~600.

No doubt. But it still seems like a bizarre strategy. They can't shoot the people they want so they just shoot these other randoms.

NY Times doesn't even know what NATO is, while writing a full-page article about it, so yeah this kind of ignorance about where USA has it hands and guns is not surprising, from some random on the internet. ;)
Post reply on HN