> RDS multi-zone AZ deployment I don't know about all RDBMS brands, but if you're running Postgres then setting up a read-only slave is trivially simple. You r

> RDS multi-zone AZ deployment I don't know about all RDBMS brands, but if you're running Postgres then setting up a read-only slave is trivially simple. You run one command to promote it to master. At my work we use both AWS and colo our own gear in two geographically isolated datacenters. We use AWS for highly specialized tasks (e.g., Lex) and our colocated servers for just about everything else. The savings have been tremendous -- our costs would be ~10x higher if everything was on AWS. I think a lot of people forget just how cost-effective dedicated servers and colocation can be. If you're not allergic to dealing with the occasional hardware failure, then there's no question in my mind that it's the right way to go.