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I kind of wish HN wouldn't show these outages unless they're going on for multiple hours or at least hide them after they're back up. Usually by the time I see

I kind of wish HN wouldn't show these outages unless they're going on for multiple hours or at least hide them after they're back up. Usually by the time I see them and then check myself the site is already back up. Maybe I just need to read HN more often.

djsumdog 7y ago
Yea, there are a lot of outage posts. It does kinda illustrate how many people depend on these core services though; and how little distributeiness or elasticity is built into the system. Linux repos and ISO download sites have TONS of mirrors, sometimes contributed by companies, but also a lot of universities, government and public institutions. Why is one of the largest core open source repositories centralized and private? Why are we so dependent on AWS, Google and others for large chunks of Internet services to be accessible? There is a deeper question here than just the outages; but rather why they affect so many people.
- inickt 7y ago
  > Why is one of the largest core open source repositories centralized and private? Why are we so dependent on AWS, Google and others for large chunks of Internet services to be accessible? Just speculating but I think distributed systems are just inherently more complex. Serving multiple mirrors is easy, hosting across a set of providers and keeping things in sync gets harder. It's a problem, and besides building completely open source systems that are designed to have distributed instances, I think its a pretty hard thing to fix.
- starbugs 7y ago
  I have a theory: Centralized infrastructure tends to be less complex and therefore cheaper. Economies of scale drive people into using a centralized monolith and then network effects do the rest. If you want a decentralized system to sustainably compete with a centralized one, the decentralized system must provide tangible and obvious surplus value in comparison to the centralized one or otherwise it is not economical. In reality that's often not the case. Usability is often worse or infrastructure is in favor of centralization (e.g. asymmetric broadband internet connections).
- seanhunter 7y ago
  > Why is one of the largest core open source repositories centralized and private? Why are we so dependent on AWS, Google and others for large chunks of Internet services to be accessible? > There is a deeper question here than just the outages; but rather why they affect so many people. The answer to these seems so obvious to me perhaps I'm missing something - Outside the centralized services the solutions are fragmented (ie the decentralized solutions are used by a lot of people but are not large by definition). I use my own Linux virtual server (as it happens, not in AWS although I have no anti-AWS beef) to host my private websites and my git repos. There are a million services that do this kind of hosting and people use all kinds of solutions like this. You will never hear about my private git repo being down because only I care when that happens.
vallismortis 7y ago
I find the post-mortems helpful. I don't want to make the same mistakes with my infrastructure, and it gives me something to reference when, for instance, the upper management decides they want to migrate to one of these services.
- pizza234 7y ago
  True, but this is not a link to a post-mortem, it's just the status page.
  - vallismortis 7y ago
    Maybe publicizing these outages is the main reason the post-mortems are made available.
    - jammygit 7y ago
      That seems at least partially true. However, I suspect that people would continue to think highly of tech companies that posted post-mortems, even if the issues were hitherto unknown. Ie, maybe it isn't only an act to prove that 'we are still trustworthy and transparent,' but also somewhat positive in and of itself?
t34543 7y ago
The link has been voted for - so there is at least a minimal amount of interest.
ZWoz 7y ago
I like those posts. Big providers are idolised by clients. Those posts help me little bit with fighting against unreasonable expectations and faulty comparisons.
k_ 7y ago
I like those, even when it's been down for one or two hours only, but the title should be edited so that we know the outage is over. I'd still prefer this thread to be replaced by a postmortem but I don't think there's one yet.
jammygit 7y ago
> Maybe I just need to read HN more often. Last night I wrote a little spreadsheet for myself showing how much time I spend doing various things. In particular, I for one do NOT need to read HN more often

djsumdog 7y ago

Yea, there are a lot of outage posts. It does kinda illustrate how many people depend on these core services though; and how little distributeiness or elasticity is built into the system. Linux repos and ISO download sites have TONS of mirrors, sometimes contributed by companies, but also a lot of universities, government and public institutions. Why is one of the largest core open source repositories centralized and private? Why are we so dependent on AWS, Google and others for large chunks of Internet services to be accessible? There is a deeper question here than just the outages; but rather why they affect so many people.

inickt 7y ago
> Why is one of the largest core open source repositories centralized and private? Why are we so dependent on AWS, Google and others for large chunks of Internet services to be accessible? Just speculating but I think distributed systems are just inherently more complex. Serving multiple mirrors is easy, hosting across a set of providers and keeping things in sync gets harder. It's a problem, and besides building completely open source systems that are designed to have distributed instances, I think its a pretty hard thing to fix.
starbugs 7y ago
I have a theory: Centralized infrastructure tends to be less complex and therefore cheaper. Economies of scale drive people into using a centralized monolith and then network effects do the rest. If you want a decentralized system to sustainably compete with a centralized one, the decentralized system must provide tangible and obvious surplus value in comparison to the centralized one or otherwise it is not economical. In reality that's often not the case. Usability is often worse or infrastructure is in favor of centralization (e.g. asymmetric broadband internet connections).
seanhunter 7y ago
> Why is one of the largest core open source repositories centralized and private? Why are we so dependent on AWS, Google and others for large chunks of Internet services to be accessible? > There is a deeper question here than just the outages; but rather why they affect so many people. The answer to these seems so obvious to me perhaps I'm missing something - Outside the centralized services the solutions are fragmented (ie the decentralized solutions are used by a lot of people but are not large by definition). I use my own Linux virtual server (as it happens, not in AWS although I have no anti-AWS beef) to host my private websites and my git repos. There are a million services that do this kind of hosting and people use all kinds of solutions like this. You will never hear about my private git repo being down because only I care when that happens.

vallismortis 7y ago

I find the post-mortems helpful. I don't want to make the same mistakes with my infrastructure, and it gives me something to reference when, for instance, the upper management decides they want to migrate to one of these services.

pizza234 7y ago
True, but this is not a link to a post-mortem, it's just the status page.
- vallismortis 7y ago
  Maybe publicizing these outages is the main reason the post-mortems are made available.
  - jammygit 7y ago
    That seems at least partially true. However, I suspect that people would continue to think highly of tech companies that posted post-mortems, even if the issues were hitherto unknown. Ie, maybe it isn't only an act to prove that 'we are still trustworthy and transparent,' but also somewhat positive in and of itself?

t34543 7y ago

The link has been voted for - so there is at least a minimal amount of interest.

ZWoz 7y ago

I like those posts. Big providers are idolised by clients. Those posts help me little bit with fighting against unreasonable expectations and faulty comparisons.

k_ 7y ago

I like those, even when it's been down for one or two hours only, but the title should be edited so that we know the outage is over. I'd still prefer this thread to be replaced by a postmortem but I don't think there's one yet.

jammygit 7y ago

> Maybe I just need to read HN more often. Last night I wrote a little spreadsheet for myself showing how much time I spend doing various things. In particular, I for one do NOT need to read HN more often