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Why I Dislike EC2

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Re: Why I Dislike EC2

#81

Post by boas »

kppullin wrote: post #56
tzury wrote: post #29

1. AWS beats all others when it comes to security [1]. 2. EC2 is just one item in the package called AWS. Hence, if you just build something more than just "web-app with *db" at the back-end, say a full blown platform, then I know no other option for you to get the full stack integrated API for Data-warehouse, DNS, Load-balancing, auto-scaling, billing, etc. 3. Speed is sometimes over-rated. You should be be speedy w…

> 1. AWS beats all others when it comes to security [1]. While the compliance and security links are impressive, AWS still doesn't offer a BAA agreement for HIPAA/HITECH compliance. There are plenty of health care companies that are held back from AWS for this single reason. Surprisingly enough Microsoft is leading in this respect (or not, given their historical enterprise focus...) - http://www.windowsazure.com/en-u…

According to Amazon, their employees are not allowed to access to your data, so you don't need to sign a business associate agreement with them to be HIPAA compliant. I imagine this is similar to how sending patient information through the post office is not considered a disclosure to the post office.

Re: Why I Dislike EC2

#83

Post by emidln »

WestCoastJustin wrote: post #79
kppullin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. AWS beats all others when it comes to security [1]. While the compliance and security links are impressive, AWS still doesn't offer a BAA agreement for HIPAA/HITECH compliance. There are plenty of health care companies that are held back from AWS for this single reason. Surprisingly enough Microsoft is leading in this respect (or not, given their historical enterprise focus...) - http://www.windowsazure.com/en-u…

This is not entirely correct. AWS does offer AWS GovCloud which, provides an environment that enables agencies to comply with HIPAA regulations [1]. You have to be a US government organization to use it though. Updated: AWS also has a whitepaper on Creating HIPAA-Compliant Medical Data Applications with AWS [2]. Looks like this is support on the standard non GovCloud stack. [1] http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-n…

I don't believe you need to be a US government organization to use the GovCloud region. I think you just have to be a US corporation or person and pay through the nose. It's only available directly via signing an actual contract, not a la carte like normal AWS services.

Re: Why I Dislike EC2

#84

Post by mitchi »

I really like the concept of Amazon EC2 but it's incredibly expensive and the performance is horrible. Give me a full 1 gigabits connection, a few ipv4 adresses, all ports open and I'm all good. 90 % of all businesses are okay with this. The server business is getting too centralized and it's bad for the internet.

Re: Why I Dislike EC2

#86

Post by tszming »

latch wrote: post #66
tszming wrote: post #47

>> At our most expensive location, we get 64GB ECC RAM, 4x1TB RAID 10 (hardware), Dual E5-2620 and 4 1Gbps adapters (bonded, 2x public, 2x private) for around 60% the price of an M3-2XLarge. M3-2XLarge = $720 per month, 60% = $432 As a softlayer customer, I would be very surprised if you can get 2620/64GB/4TB disks at this price range, we also consider ourself not a small customer, but for the above config, I guess w…

we use 100tb.com, a sofltayer reseller. It's $359 + $50 since both DC and SG aren't official 100tb datacenters: http://www.100tb.com/server-deals/ We get access to Softlayer's vpn, their control panel..pretty much everything. Years ago, at a different company, we used Softlayer proper...you can negotiate prices down by huge amounts..even so, they are overpriced when you take into account their reseller. (Note, I know…

Thanks for the link.

We have several 48GB machines ordered directly from SL, even after so called discount from SL's sales, we need to pay around $5xx per month.

Re: Why I Dislike EC2

#87

Post by dmourati »

I have done both building your own data center and running the whole enterprise on AWS. I like AWS better. Some folks have hinted at it here but the ability to spin up a node rapidly is a huge game changer. Ya, you could accomplish some of this with open source and your own hardware but the flexibility will pale in comparison to what you get from Amazon. A year ago, I was all on board the OpenStack train. I think it is great by way of keeping Amazon honest and therefore keeping prices in check. I'd still pay a premium for Amazon over a public OpenStack or a roll-your-own solution.

Re: Why I Dislike EC2

#88

Post by nirvdrum »

ejdyksen wrote: post #51

You also lose one of EC2's only advantage: per hour billing. This isn't true. Reserved instances still use per hour billing, just at a discounted rate.

That's not entirely accurate either. If you buy a heavy reserved instance you have to pay for every hour, whether or not you use it, for the length of the reservation. So, it's technically still per-hour billing at a discounted rate, but you gain absolutely nothing by shutting down a machine.

Re: Why I Dislike EC2

#89

Post by nirvdrum »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #16

The first letter in EC2 stands for elastic. If you aren't using EC2 for it's elasticity then you're probably doing it wrong. Kind of a no-brainer.

Considering Amazon offers an entire pricing tier around 24/7 utilization (heavy reserved instances), it's probably safe to say that EC2 is no longer purely elastic.

Re: Why I Dislike EC2

#90

Post by nirvdrum »

threeseed wrote: post #78
banachtarski wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just a question of speed. If your machines are slow, that means you need more machines to handle your throughput, which means you are paying for that 20 ms slowdown in actual dollars.

Not necessarily. AWS has a far superior network to almost anything else out there. Machine performance is not the only important part.

Sure, but the whole thing is predicated on the 20ms slowdown coming from a slow machine, not network latency. And that's a pretty good assumption. Due to RAM limitations and abysmal performance, I could maybe push 15 concurrent requests on a c1.medium running a Rails app in Passenger with a non-CoW Ruby. Forking is terribly slow on EC2. An m1.small was out of the question.
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