Amazon EC2 May Be Experiencing Growing Pains

1sockchuck writes "Some developers using Amazon EC2 are wondering aloud whether the popularity of the cloud computing service is beginning to affect its performance. Amazon this week denied speculation that it was experiencing capacity problems after a veteran developer reported performance issues and suggested that EC2 might be oversubscribed. Meanwhile, a cloud monitoring service published charts showing increased latency on EC2 in recent weeks. The reports follow an incident over the holidays in which a DDoS on a DNS provider slowed Amazon's retail and cloud operations."

Missed Opportunity

[cgenman]

Why not say "Yes, we're way too popular. We're adding capacity as quickly as we can, but people are just lapping up our service!"

This seems like a missed marketing opportunity.

Re:Missed Opportunity

[SatanicPuppy]

It misses the point of the magical cloud! If the phbs learn that the magical cloud can run out of capacity, then they might have to start planning again.

If they do that then EC2 and other similar services which sell the same capacity to 100 different people on the principle that they won't all get taxed at the same time, are going to have some explaining to do.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:still too expensive

[shayne321]

Apples and tomatoes.. Unless your company already owns a fully equipped data center with excess capacity you have to factor in colocation space, power, cooling, backups, network infrastructure, and security. And if you're not colocating in a space where you can purchase bandwidth you have to factor in the cost of the physical circuit(s) (T1/T3/Metro-E, whatever).

We haven't even begun to consider availability. What if your app can't tolerate 4 hours of downtime (for the HP monkey to come swap out your motherboard)? Now we need redundant servers, redundant connectivity, generator and ups capacity, highly-available network infrastructure, load balancers, etc. Let's not forget the highly paid staff/consultants to implement and maintain all of this.

What happens when your app takes off and you need to scale rapidly? Now you have to procure and install servers, keeping up with the infrastructure required every step of the way.

Also, don't forget in 5 years that $13,000 server you just bought will be a boat anchor. Time to purchase a whole new round of hardware.

I'm not claiming cloud computing is the end all solution for everything, there are certainly drawbacks.. But you cannot compare the cost of a $13,000 server to a $6,000/year instance lease as apples to apples.

Re:still too expensive

[slim]

the per hour plans are cheap. but the 24x7 hosting EC2 plans are a lot more expensive than physical hardware.

Which makes the GP's taxi analogy perfect. If you want to host something with reasonably static storage needs, that's getting hit consistently all year round, EC2's going to be more expensive than the alternatives.

If you've got something like SmugMug (image hosting) where your storage needs grow forever, at an unpredictable rate, S3 might be cheaper than managing the storage yourself.

If you get massive surges in demand, a few times a year (for example, you sell tickets for in-demand events), the ability to add a few hundred EC2 instances just at the times you need them, might be cheaper than having that spare capacity all year round.

Re:still too expensive

[segedunum]

You can always tell someone doesn't know what they are talking about when they price up hardware and say memory is 'dirt cheap' and then say that something like EC2 is too expensive. I see it a lot in those scrawny developers around the web who don't want to do any deployment (and want to pretend it doesn't even exist) and want something like EC2 and Engine Yard but for the cost that they were paying for shared hosting - where they complained that they were running out of resources!

Purchasing hardware implies a lof of other costs - where you will host it, how you will connect it, how you will back it up........ Going a traditional hosting route for this is ridiculously expensive. You need to rent the hardware, you need to communicate with the hosting company about setting up, you don't know how it will be set up (at least things are standardised with EC2), how you will handle failover (buy more hardware!) and how you will back it up (buy more hardware and storage!). Can you snapshot your data easily? Can you simply fire up a copy of your server to get running again or do testing? How will you recover from a hardware failure or a disaster where you don't hear from your hosting company for several hours while everyone bites their finger nails? It's why every other hosting company is either denying that EC2 is happening, trying to trash-talk it or trying to come up with their own 'cloud' virtualised, decentralised storage platform with some kind of software management tool........and generally failing at it. They will either respond to it or they will die.

RAM prices are dirt cheap and at current prices a 36GB RAM HP Proliant DL 380 G6 will run around $13,000 and 72GB of RAM another $2000. and that includes 5 year 4 hour response time support

Excuse me while I get up off the floor from laughing. What kind of 'support' do you think you get for that and how useful do you think it is? That supports is for ASPs and hosters. For the rest of us, deploying something means several layers of support on top of that for the hardware. Trust me - every other hosting company has scaling, infrastructure and bandwidth issues. I've been through it. My experience with EC2 in my somewhat limited comparative forays thus far have been infinitely preferable.

i buy an HP server i buy one machine and a few hard drives. to support me Amazon needs to buy a few servers and 5 times the raw space for DR purposes.

Yer, probably because you don't back anything up and you haven't had to handle recovery from a disaster. Pffffffffffffffff............... We can see who the average Slahsdot reader is when this gets modded up with this level of grammar.

Re:Missed Opportunity

[segedunum]

for one, replication and startup of machines takes at best log(n) time

Errrrrrrrrrr, yer. However, simply restarting a server image is infinitely preferable to hanging around for a few hours while you bite your nails waiting for a hoster to fix something. Been through it. Not going back.

(if your web application requires less than at least a rack in a datacenter there is actually no sense in having it clouded)

So you're saying if anything takes less than a rack to host then there is no point in having it hosted for you............anywhere?!

I have no idea why people think that 'cloud' computing is any different to traditional hosting. You have all the same considerations when on EC2, Joyent or anywhere else as you do if you were getting a hosting company to specifically buy hardware and set things up for you - except many things on EC2 or such a platform are standardised and you can manage a great deal through software without hanging around for someone to schedule a time to do 'something'. Maybe that's what some people don't like? ;-)

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Missed Opportunity

[slim]

With the "cloud" you have to trust that some third party, whose business is making money, is going to spend for the capacity to cover those contingencies. I flat do not trust them.

This argument to be used against any and all outsourcing.

With "motorcar servicing" you have to trust that some third party, whose business is making money, is going to perform due diligence when servicing my car.

With "banking" you have to trust that some third party, whose business is making money, is going to keep my money in a secure manner.

With "office cleaners" you have to trust that some third party, whose business is making money, is going to come in on a regular basis and clean the office.

It's a non-issue. Have your contract specify what you require from the service. If the vendor doesn't fulfil the terms of the contract, sue them.

If Amazon's SLA doesn't meet your requirements, then sure, don't buy their service. Find a provider who does, or, yes, roll your own.

But if their SLA does meet your requirements, why the hell would you "flat do not trust them" to fulfil that?