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AWS says it can't restore some data from mideast facilities struck by Iran

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Re: AWS says it can't restore some data from mideast facilities struck by Iran

#311
post #109
post #73

This interview with an AWS leader isn’t aging well, from CBS Sunday morning: Pogue asked, "I don't mean to give anyone ideas, but let's say I figured out that one of these unmarked buildings was an AWS data center, and I blew it up. Are you saying that it's so backed up and redundant that you probably wouldn't notice?" Wood replied, "Yeah, you wouldn't notice. I mean, we might be a bit upset, but you wouldn't notice!…

That is actually surprising to me. Claims like that are pretty common, they make sense and they should be true, so even though I don't really know AWS (/Backblaze/Azure/whatever) redundancy planning in enough detail, I used to trust them. It's really worrying when they outright say it will be ok, and then a week later it turns out to be not ok.

“It’s not the cloud. It’s just someone else’s computer.” - MM

Re: AWS says it can't restore some data from mideast facilities struck by Iran

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's good that when a data center blows up the data is lost. Noteworthy for future skynet situation, etc. Doesn’t really apply, because the only reason data was lost is because customers chose not to replicate it to other regions, either because of legal data residency requirements, cost, or just not bothering. If Skynet wants to make sure it’s backed up, none of that prevents it from doing so. Although it…

AWS promises to keep data safe without requiring cross region redundancy. If you choose not to trust them that's valid but then why use them at all?

>> AWS promises to keep data safe without requiring cross region redundancy.

A perfect example of a claim they never made.

Re: AWS says it can't restore some data from mideast facilities struck by Iran

#313

I think this is due to the data residency requirements in UAE. I'm working with a client in the health space and the government requirements requires me to store data only in UAE! Tried with AWS but they were not allowing any new instances and I had to go with Azure.

Hi, I'm from the past. When countries in the 2010s -- especially Western countries -- started seeing data residency requirements as an acceptable aspect of national policies, as opposed to a weird authoritarian thing that only China and Russia imposed on their citizens, we[1] spent a bunch of time explaining to their lawmakers that having geographical redundancy was a good thing, actually, and that you should stop in…

you know this is why china and russia were stealing data, so that they can provide you backups if you lost yours /s

Re: AWS says it can't restore some data from mideast facilities struck by Iran

#314
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They say it's "designed for" 11 9s, not guaranteed.

But if they want to design for extreme probabilities you need to account for tail risks, so their design should have included a missile defense system. At some point you need to start worrying about asteroid defense too.

Ah so that's why we need a lunar base. To uphold S3's 11 9s of availability

Re: AWS says it can't restore some data from mideast facilities struck by Iran

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually true. AWS is designed to survive one datacenter being offline (which happened more than once, btw). When the first DC in ME was hit, AWS continued working normally, with only a few services experiencing issues. But it's not designed to survive TWO datacenters going offline, and in a permanent fashion.

Aren't they supposed to have 3 copies of everything? If so, two datacenters going offline at the same time should mean almost zero data loss.

No.

_You_ are supposed to have three copies of everything - and two of those should be off AWS.

Re: AWS says it can't restore some data from mideast facilities struck by Iran

#317
post #297
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are pointing the fingers at the wrong people. Cloud providers pushed this idea onto executives via their marketing and conferencing channels. Not disimilar to how AI naratives are pushed on executives these last two years.

You just have to take a look at the Rube Goldberg-esque abomination that is the AWS web interface for a few minutes to realize that it's not that simple. Granted, most executives won't do that...

Or encounter their CLI and it's lovecraftian combination of positional arguments, named arguments, piping, json documents, etc, distributed largely by random lot, as far as I can tell.

Re: AWS says it can't restore some data from mideast facilities struck by Iran

#318
post #237
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, a lot of non-technical leaders believe that 'cloud' is synonymous with 'DR strategy' or even 'backup'. "We won't have to worry about being offline if our server goes down if we move to the cloud!" Some of these people fundamentally don't understand what the cloud is, their assumption is cloud means easy button that solves all your infrastructure and uptime problems.

You are pointing the fingers at the wrong people. Cloud providers pushed this idea onto executives via their marketing and conferencing channels. Not disimilar to how AI naratives are pushed on executives these last two years.

No. If you're the leader you should know what you're leading. It's literally the job.

But the problem is right there: "non-technical" leaders. Never work for one if you can avoid it.

Re: AWS says it can't restore some data from mideast facilities struck by Iran

#319

I think this is due to the data residency requirements in UAE. I'm working with a client in the health space and the government requirements requires me to store data only in UAE! Tried with AWS but they were not allowing any new instances and I had to go with Azure.

Hi, I'm from the past. When countries in the 2010s -- especially Western countries -- started seeing data residency requirements as an acceptable aspect of national policies, as opposed to a weird authoritarian thing that only China and Russia imposed on their citizens, we[1] spent a bunch of time explaining to their lawmakers that having geographical redundancy was a good thing, actually, and that you should stop in…

I mean, it was clear and open that USA will spy on any data stored in there. Because foreigner do not get legal protections.

And second, the USA is in the middle of power grab that completely ensures any data stored there will be taken hostage wherever suitable for "negotiations".

Re: AWS says it can't restore some data from mideast facilities struck by Iran

#320
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, I'm from the future. You might want to consider storing the data somewhere besides an Azure datacenter in the UAE.

Are you me from the future? I'm not talking to future strangers. Tell me to deliver the bad news myself from the future, in the future.

It might be the you of Theseus. You really don't want to know what the future holds.
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