161–164 of 164 posts
If your architecture means your system goes down if AWS is down, then the question becomes can you replace AWS with something better that you can build, have means to build, have time to build, can keep running, can get enough momentum in term of sheer size of customer base to fund the upkeep of the platform? If you can't build/run a better AWS replacement then it's a mute point, isn't it? Then the question turns int…
irrelevant points are "moot", not "mute"
Thanks. :)
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I used to work at a company that had a large cage in a local data center - one of the other cages in the same room was apparently for the local police force (we weren't supposed to know this!). It wouldn't surprise me if those police systems have moved, or are moving, to Azure or AWS data centers.
Police would probably still work fine without data centers for a few days. As long as they can communicate and 911 works, they can do most of their job in the short run. It's much worse if benefits or paychecks don't get paid. For many people that means that they won't be able to buy groceries as soon as a few days later. Not the standard HN crowd, but many people depend on regular paychecks and can be in trouble if…
Funny thing with the police, in the 60s there was flooding and they couldn't coordinate a response, so radio amateurs had to step in and provide comms. Those enthusiasts are still around under the codename RAYNET. The police eventually got their act together and invested in a system called TETRA which is self-contained and independent of any other infrastructure so they would never be caught with their pants down again.
Now they've ditched TETRA to save money and they just run over the 4G network like anyone else...
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I feel like the point of the article we're commenting on is that AWS is far from "a few websites"
You can live without Netflix much longer than you can without a flushing toilet, is the point I'm making. Yet we don't have armed guards patrolling the sewageworks... It's a matter of priority how finite security personnel are deployed.
If you hit AWS, just Netflix alone is going to effect 100 million people. There are definitely a few payroll providers that are going to have some reliance, so people all over are going to stop receiving their paycheques. Many businesses will be temporarily disabled.
On a national level we've got a lot more eggs concentrated in the AWS baskets than we do the sewage treatment baskets.