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Yes, this is true. When I first heard about AWS I assumed Amazon was selling excess capacity (because why would an online retailer set out to build something l

by pg 15y ago

Yes, this is true. When I first heard about AWS I assumed Amazon was selling excess capacity (because why would an online retailer set out to build something like this?), but in fact, as you say, it was a completely separate project. I've heard from people who used to work at Amazon that they don't use AWS for much there.

gujk 15y ago
Strange, I have heard the opposite. My team at Amazon wrote services on AWS. It must vary a bit across the company.
jonjenk 15y ago
I tend to think we use it quite a lot internally. For instance every amazon.com web server has been running on AWS for quite a while now. You'll find more info here. http://psav.mediasite.com/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=7ab95f6a5d4a479fa512270356a1e8a81d http://psav.mediasite.com/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=7ab95f6a5d4... We're also building Amazon Silk on AWS. As you might guess I think it's pretty cool too. http://amazonsilk.wordpress.com/ http://amazonsilk.wordpress.com/
- justinchen 15y ago
  Great video. Got me thinking about new ways to use S3.
tptacek 15y ago
You may be thinking of comments like this (from 'nirvana): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3102129 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3102129
vidarh 15y ago
It should have been obvious for everyone right away that either Amazon was not selling excess capacity or depending on AWS would have been a very bad idea. If Amazon was selling excess capacity, care to guess what would have happened to peoples services come the christmas rush, or any other crunch time for Amazon? AWS have always been expensive for capacity you need most of the time compared to renting dedicated capacity elsewhere, as you're not only paying for the capacity, but for enough excess capacity for Amazon not to run into the PR disaster of not being able to handle requests for new instances. The numbers and plain logic just never matched the perception of Amazon selling excess capacity. The most amazing thing about AWS was how Amazon managed to get people to see it as the most amazing thing to ever happen for hosting and create the perception that you somehow paid for less, when for most typical web hosting scenarios you pay more for a service that is pretty much promised to be less reliable. (Note that I use EC2 for some things - it has it's uses, and is a good product, but it was way overhyped)

by pg 15y ago

gujk 15y ago

Strange, I have heard the opposite. My team at Amazon wrote services on AWS. It must vary a bit across the company.

jonjenk 15y ago

I tend to think we use it quite a lot internally. For instance every amazon.com web server has been running on AWS for quite a while now. You'll find more info here. http://psav.mediasite.com/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=7ab95f6a5d4a479fa512270356a1e8a81d http://psav.mediasite.com/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=7ab95f6a5d4... We're also building Amazon Silk on AWS. As you might guess I think it's pretty cool too. http://amazonsilk.wordpress.com/ http://amazonsilk.wordpress.com/

justinchen 15y ago
Great video. Got me thinking about new ways to use S3.

tptacek 15y ago

You may be thinking of comments like this (from 'nirvana): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3102129 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3102129

vidarh 15y ago

It should have been obvious for everyone right away that either Amazon was not selling excess capacity or depending on AWS would have been a very bad idea. If Amazon was selling excess capacity, care to guess what would have happened to peoples services come the christmas rush, or any other crunch time for Amazon? AWS have always been expensive for capacity you need most of the time compared to renting dedicated capacity elsewhere, as you're not only paying for the capacity, but for enough excess capacity for Amazon not to run into the PR disaster of not being able to handle requests for new instances. The numbers and plain logic just never matched the perception of Amazon selling excess capacity. The most amazing thing about AWS was how Amazon managed to get people to see it as the most amazing thing to ever happen for hosting and create the perception that you somehow paid for less, when for most typical web hosting scenarios you pay more for a service that is pretty much promised to be less reliable. (Note that I use EC2 for some things - it has it's uses, and is a good product, but it was way overhyped)