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As a DBA, I feel that AWS has a conflict-of-interest in making PRs that decrease performance, then telling me, "Just pay for a bigger instance." Luckily, datab

As a DBA, I feel that AWS has a conflict-of-interest in making PRs that decrease performance, then telling me, "Just pay for a bigger instance." Luckily, database instances are a small percentage of a fleet, but even so, they're also usually the most expensive ones. (Meltdown and Spectre had a huge impact on databases near the limits of their existing instance size, unexpectedly tipping them over into the next tier and doubling the cost.)

ajross 6y ago
The cloud industry as a whole might have that conflict of interest. But AWS itself is a single player in a really quite competetive industry. Configuring their kernels to be deliberately slow would be a clear disadvantage vs. Google and Microsoft et. al.
- weare138 6y ago
  Obviously I can't say for certain Amazon has an agenda here but I could see how this would benefit them. [puts on additional tin foil hat] I don't think Amazon would be targeting the big players like Google and MS. All of them can easily afford to take the loss. But this could affect the smaller VM providers (DO, Linode, Upserve, etc.) with less capital. Losing even just a few percentage points of CPU performance would cut into already thin margins. If there is a conspiracy here, I think they would be targeting the smaller players in the industry.
- gdulli 6y ago
  If one's not careful, they may end up using so many of these services that the idea of switching to a better cloud provider is academic. Athena • CloudSearch • Elasticsearch Service • EMR • Kinesis • Redshift • Quicksight • Data Pipeline • Glue • Lake Formation • Data Exchange • EventBridge • Step Functions • Simple Queue Service • Simple Notification Service • MQ • AppSync • Sumerian • Managed Blockchain • Quantum Ledger Database • Alexa for Business • Chime • WorkMail • WorkDocs • Connect • Pinpoint • EC2 • Elastic Container Service • Elastic Kubernetes Service • Elastic Container Registry • Lightsail • Batch • Elastic Beanstalk • Fargate • Lambda • Serverless Application Repository • VMware Cloud • Outposts • Wavelength • WorkSpaces • AppStream 2.0 • WorkLink • GameLift • Lumberyard • Aurora • RDS • DynamoDB • ElastiCache • Neptune • DocumentDB • CodeStar • CodeCommit • CodeBuild • CodeDeploy • CodePipeline • Cloud9 • X-Ray • Command Line Interface • Corretto • IoT Core • FreeRTOS • Greengrass • IoT 1-Click • IoT Analytics • IoT Button • IoT Device Defender • IoT Device Management • Partner Device Catalog • SageMaker • Comprehend • Lex • Polly • Rekognition • Translate • Transcribe • DeepLens • Deep Learning AMIs • Apache MXNet • TensorFlow • Elastic Inference • SageMaker Ground Truth • Deep Learning Containers • Augmented AI • CloudWatch • Auto Scaling • CloudFormation • CloudTrail • OpsWorks • Service Catalog • Systems Manager • Trusted Advisor • Personal Health Dashboard • Control Tower • License Manager • Well-Architected Tool • Console Mobile Application • Management Console • Managed Services • Organizations • Compute Optimizer • Elastic Transcoder • Kinesis Video Streams • Elemental MediaConvert • Elemental MediaLive • Elemental MediaPackage • Elemental MediaStore • Elemental MediaTailor • Elemental MediaConnect • CloudEndure Migration • Application Discovery Service • Migration Hub • Server Migration Service • Snow Family • DataSync • Transfer for SFTP • Amplify • API Gateway • Device Farm • VPC • PrivateLink • CloudFront • Route 53 • Direct Connect • Cloud Map • App Mesh • Transit Gateway • Global Accelerator • Elastic Load Balancing • RoboMaker • Resource Access Manager • Identity & Access Management • Cloud Directory • Cognito • Single Sign-On • GuardDuty • Inspector • Macie • Certificate Manager • CloudHSM • Directory Service • Firewall Manager • Key Management Service • Secrets Manager • Shield • WAF • Artifact • Simple Storage Service • Elastic File System • S3 Glacier • Storage Gateway • Snow Family • FSx for Windows File Server • Backup
- majewsky 6y ago
  > The cloud industry as a whole might have that conflict of interest. IaaS providers (and maybe PaaS providers) have that conflict of interest. SaaS providers certainly don't. If the customer only pays for actions performed, you have an incentive to do it with as little resources as possible. Disclosure: I work in the internal cloud unit of a company offering SaaS.
ComputerGuru 6y ago
I don’t think that’s the reasonable conclusion when there’s a more obvious one. AWS has a different agenda in that they don’t directly bear the cost of these security reinforcements directly (as they are passed along to customers in the form of reduced “capacity” on all Linux machines everywhere) but they directly benefit (directly via the ability to use shared tenancy, and directly by having customers more willing to use shared tenancy solutions). It is also very much in their favor for “slower execution” to not be under the AWS column in a Pros and Cons list stacked against an on-prem alternative, which would be the case if it’s a patch they’re using (forced to use by nature of renting out shared tenancy to potential attackers) that on-prem configurations wouldn’t be.

ajross 6y ago

The cloud industry as a whole might have that conflict of interest. But AWS itself is a single player in a really quite competetive industry. Configuring their kernels to be deliberately slow would be a clear disadvantage vs. Google and Microsoft et. al.

weare138 6y ago
Obviously I can't say for certain Amazon has an agenda here but I could see how this would benefit them. [puts on additional tin foil hat] I don't think Amazon would be targeting the big players like Google and MS. All of them can easily afford to take the loss. But this could affect the smaller VM providers (DO, Linode, Upserve, etc.) with less capital. Losing even just a few percentage points of CPU performance would cut into already thin margins. If there is a conspiracy here, I think they would be targeting the smaller players in the industry.
gdulli 6y ago
If one's not careful, they may end up using so many of these services that the idea of switching to a better cloud provider is academic. Athena • CloudSearch • Elasticsearch Service • EMR • Kinesis • Redshift • Quicksight • Data Pipeline • Glue • Lake Formation • Data Exchange • EventBridge • Step Functions • Simple Queue Service • Simple Notification Service • MQ • AppSync • Sumerian • Managed Blockchain • Quantum Ledger Database • Alexa for Business • Chime • WorkMail • WorkDocs • Connect • Pinpoint • EC2 • Elastic Container Service • Elastic Kubernetes Service • Elastic Container Registry • Lightsail • Batch • Elastic Beanstalk • Fargate • Lambda • Serverless Application Repository • VMware Cloud • Outposts • Wavelength • WorkSpaces • AppStream 2.0 • WorkLink • GameLift • Lumberyard • Aurora • RDS • DynamoDB • ElastiCache • Neptune • DocumentDB • CodeStar • CodeCommit • CodeBuild • CodeDeploy • CodePipeline • Cloud9 • X-Ray • Command Line Interface • Corretto • IoT Core • FreeRTOS • Greengrass • IoT 1-Click • IoT Analytics • IoT Button • IoT Device Defender • IoT Device Management • Partner Device Catalog • SageMaker • Comprehend • Lex • Polly • Rekognition • Translate • Transcribe • DeepLens • Deep Learning AMIs • Apache MXNet • TensorFlow • Elastic Inference • SageMaker Ground Truth • Deep Learning Containers • Augmented AI • CloudWatch • Auto Scaling • CloudFormation • CloudTrail • OpsWorks • Service Catalog • Systems Manager • Trusted Advisor • Personal Health Dashboard • Control Tower • License Manager • Well-Architected Tool • Console Mobile Application • Management Console • Managed Services • Organizations • Compute Optimizer • Elastic Transcoder • Kinesis Video Streams • Elemental MediaConvert • Elemental MediaLive • Elemental MediaPackage • Elemental MediaStore • Elemental MediaTailor • Elemental MediaConnect • CloudEndure Migration • Application Discovery Service • Migration Hub • Server Migration Service • Snow Family • DataSync • Transfer for SFTP • Amplify • API Gateway • Device Farm • VPC • PrivateLink • CloudFront • Route 53 • Direct Connect • Cloud Map • App Mesh • Transit Gateway • Global Accelerator • Elastic Load Balancing • RoboMaker • Resource Access Manager • Identity & Access Management • Cloud Directory • Cognito • Single Sign-On • GuardDuty • Inspector • Macie • Certificate Manager • CloudHSM • Directory Service • Firewall Manager • Key Management Service • Secrets Manager • Shield • WAF • Artifact • Simple Storage Service • Elastic File System • S3 Glacier • Storage Gateway • Snow Family • FSx for Windows File Server • Backup
majewsky 6y ago
> The cloud industry as a whole might have that conflict of interest. IaaS providers (and maybe PaaS providers) have that conflict of interest. SaaS providers certainly don't. If the customer only pays for actions performed, you have an incentive to do it with as little resources as possible. Disclosure: I work in the internal cloud unit of a company offering SaaS.

ComputerGuru 6y ago

I don’t think that’s the reasonable conclusion when there’s a more obvious one. AWS has a different agenda in that they don’t directly bear the cost of these security reinforcements directly (as they are passed along to customers in the form of reduced “capacity” on all Linux machines everywhere) but they directly benefit (directly via the ability to use shared tenancy, and directly by having customers more willing to use shared tenancy solutions). It is also very much in their favor for “slower execution” to not be under the AWS column in a Pros and Cons list stacked against an on-prem alternative, which would be the case if it’s a patch they’re using (forced to use by nature of renting out shared tenancy to potential attackers) that on-prem configurations wouldn’t be.