Amazon was down • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon was down

#51

Post by Tobani » Fri, May 10, 2013, 2:29 PM UTC

martin_ wrote: post #30

Tobani wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you apparently have never been to the aws status page.

you apparently can't read

Also while it was 'definitely down' I placed an order so I'm not sure what your version of down is.

Re: Amazon was down

#52

Post by pmelendez » Fri, May 10, 2013, 2:37 PM UTC

swatkat wrote: post #44

ihuman wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real programmers use a magnatized needle and a steady hand

http://xkcd.com/378/ :)

Thanks! I didn't understand the magnetized needle joke at first :)

Edit: Downvoted? Really? For showing appreciation for a link?

Re: Amazon was down

#53

Post by scrapcode » Fri, May 10, 2013, 2:44 PM UTC

kylec wrote: post #47

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I removed the querystring from the URL and then it worked for me.

I did as well, and still got the error. I'm now getting the home page, but that doesn't necessarily mean the site's fully back up.

Http/1.1 Service Unavailable for me. Almost an hour later.

Re: Amazon was down

#54

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 10, 2013, 2:48 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Amazon was down

#55

Post by singlow » Fri, May 10, 2013, 2:50 PM UTC

marithe wrote: post #50

fredley wrote: post #14

It's spontaneously up for me, sometimes I get a homepage, most of the time I get Http/1.1 Service Unavailable.

spontaneously?

intermittently

Re: Amazon was down

#56

Post by tedder » Fri, May 10, 2013, 2:52 PM UTC

polymatter wrote: post #31

acangiano wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking revenue lost.

I recall someone claiming to be an amazon developer one of the previous times when this happened claiming that they don't actually lose that much money. (sorry no link, my google-fu has failed me). A small number of orders where people are desperate are lost, but the vast majority of people generally just wait it out and make their order tomorrow instead.

10 years ago we calculated downtime at $100k/minute for the homepage. So when you tried to do an ajaxy thing on the home page and messed it up, even after testing, you had to write an email that calculated how much theoretical money was lost.

And sure, there's some elasticity, but an approximation is handy.

Re: Amazon was down

#57

Post by noir_lord » Fri, May 10, 2013, 2:58 PM UTC

ericb wrote: post #32

Some folks at Amazon are having a really bad day right now.

I suspect they are having a busy day right now, tomorrow will be the bad day :).

Re: Amazon was down

#58

Post by potatolicious » Fri, May 10, 2013, 3:02 PM UTC

acangiano wrote: post #8

I wonder how many millions are lost per minute of downtime.

I'd suspect not a lot. The number that gets tossed around is based on the whole year's sales divided by downtime - but that fails to account for seasonality.

The retail market in the USA can be accurately summarized as "slow trickle slow trickle slow trickle slow trickle MASSIVE DELUGE OMG OMG slow trickle slow trickle..."

It would shock people how much consumer spending is shoved into the November-December time frame. Since this downtime is in the middle of May, I don't expect them to lose much money at all.

Re: Amazon was down

#59

Post by etjossem » Fri, May 10, 2013, 3:14 PM UTC

marithe wrote: post #50

fredley wrote: post #14

It's spontaneously up for me, sometimes I get a homepage, most of the time I get Http/1.1 Service Unavailable.

spontaneously?

Sporadically.

Re: Amazon was down

#60

Post by shawabawa3 » Fri, May 10, 2013, 3:33 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #58

acangiano wrote: post #8

I wonder how many millions are lost per minute of downtime.

I'd suspect not a lot. The number that gets tossed around is based on the whole year's sales divided by downtime - but that fails to account for seasonality. The retail market in the USA can be accurately summarized as "slow trickle slow trickle slow trickle slow trickle MASSIVE DELUGE OMG OMG slow trickle slow trickle..." It would shock people how much consumer spending is shoved into the November-December time fram…

Also, a lot of the "lost" orders during the down time will actually just be delayed. I imagine most people will just try to place their order again tomorrow