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I think I'll point to this as one of the examples of how AWS has been scrappy and successful. (Yes, I'll get like 10 flames on this comment.) They made this nic

I think I'll point to this as one of the examples of how AWS has been scrappy and successful. (Yes, I'll get like 10 flames on this comment.) They made this nice simple API for S3 that has become a de facto standard. They added lots of features and security controls, and I can easily imagine an architect saying "everyone should just adopt S3, it's so easy!" But huge, paying customers were used to tape libraries so they said, damnit, fine we'll pretend to be a tape library even though that is super weird on some level... Meeting users where they are can be a superpower.

chickenpotpie 4y ago
> damnit, fine we'll pretend to be a tape library IIRC, they may not be pretending. It's not public knowledge what storage medium AWS glacier is built on, but many speculate it is actually tape.
- capableweb 4y ago
  Well, they do call it "virtual tapes", would be weird (maybe even illegal? False/misleading advertisement?) if they ended up storing it on physical tapes anyways. Edit: found in another thread here, the inventor linked the patent (https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/10013166 https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloa...) which confirms it's virtual tapes, not actual tapes.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Well, they do call it "virtual tapes", would be weird (maybe even illegal? False/misleading advertisement?) if they ended up storing it on physical tapes anyways. No, just like it is not weird and definitely not illegal for the things they call “virtual machines” to end up being run on actual machines.
    - capableweb 4y ago
      If you purchase a service describing it as "isolated virtual machines" and it ends up just being processes on a computer without any virtualization, wouldn't you call that at least misleading?
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        Well, yes, because the “isolated” is false, not because the “virtual machine” abstraction is realized on a real machine.
        capableweb 4y ago
        Right. If it says "Virtual machines" and it isn't, you wouldn't call that at least misleading?
        iamtedd 4y ago
        I think you're misunderstanding the scenario. What if each 'virtual' machine is actually bare metal i.e.: every EC2 instance is actually a separate computer? There's still isolation, there's just no virtualisation abstraction.
        xboxnolifes 4y ago
        What if your goal was to test virtual machine feature and performance parity to real machine? Is that not misleading?
    - adrianmonk 4y ago
      Also virtual memory backed by physical memory, virtual credit card numbers for a real credit card, and virtual desktops displayed on real desktops.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - theamk 4y ago
    It would be "virtual tape" over S3 API over whatever technology AWS uses for glacier over physical tape. They physical tapes, if any, would be many layers down.
- adamsb6 4y ago
  My knowledge is a decade old, so they very well may be using tape now, but were not originally. At announcement time Glacier was using super dense racks of hard disks but only powering a subset of them. This led to some tape-like behaviors, like your restore request might take a long time to process because your data was likely stored on disks that weren't powered on and you'd need to wait for them to come online.
  - dastbe 4y ago
    i'd (probably apocryphally) heard at announcement it was just s3 under the hood to support customers while they built the dataplane out :)
0xbadcafebee 4y ago
When someone is waving money in your face and saying "please just give me the thing I want and I will give you all this money", it's ridiculous not to listen. So many competitors just don't listen.
- capableweb 4y ago
  > So many competitors just don't listen Sometimes people build things/products/companies/whatever not because of the chase of money, but because they want to put their idea in the world. Maybe it's just a case of someone believing they can build something grander :)
fnordpiglet 4y ago
It’s not that weird. Tape libraries are well established and have well vetted highly reliable semantics that are deeply ingrained in many companies way of working. What’s weird is companies trying to sell some completely new way of achieving similar results and being surprised when the universe doesn’t reengineer everything as homage to their brilliance
- derefr 4y ago
  > What’s weird is companies trying to sell some completely new way of achieving similar results and being surprised when the universe doesn’t reengineer everything as homage to their brilliance Some abstractions can be proven to be objectively-better solutions, along some axes you care about, for your use-case, such that the existing abstraction you were relying upon is then provably sub-optimal. Switching to the more-optimal abstraction is not then an "homage to the brilliance" of the company that created the abstraction; it's a simple "pay CapEx to lower OpEx in a way that will pay itself back after N years" decision. If you can budget it, you do it. I'm not saying that every abstraction that the IaaS vendors invent is this kind of better mouse-trap, mind you. You can usually distinguish the ones that are, because they get independently reimplemented and used by people who aren't just aiming to build "cloud-native" software, but instead just really want/need the semantics of that particular abstraction, independent of where it runs. Object storage is a great example of an abstraction where that is the case. There are many things that do object storage now — both cloud services, and regular deployable software. In fact, even the more-traditional backup vendors, like Backblaze, now also offer object-storage APIs.
CSMastermind 4y ago
I use AWS at the companies I work for because of their amazing customer service. I'm fairly critical of Amazon's engineering culture and practices but as a customer I have to admit they are head and shoulders above their competition and frankly most SaaS providers as a whole. They've secured millions of dollars in revenue from me alone just by being so customer friendly.
- oneplane 4y ago
  Yep, that's been my experience as well. AWS (and Amazon as a whole) are bad for the people that work there, but as for their service offerings, it would take GCP and Azure combined to get even close.
  - MisterPea 4y ago
    I think if you took a poll of AWS workers you'd find that most enjoy it. The culture leads to a vocal minority who REALLY hate it but my time there was some of the most enjoyable I've ever had. I've worked with some of the smartest people in the tech field, building products from scratch for billion dollar customers and learning every day. I've always told people that it's probably the best place you can start out of college. EDIT: This was back in 2016, I'm not sure how much has changed without Bezos and Jassy at helm of AWS
    - posguy 4y ago
      Amazon is a turn and burn employer at its heart. I've watched dozens of friends and acquaintances work there, rarely making it past 2 years, only to leave for less caustic organization thereafter. Unless your willing to put up with a huge ration of shit on a regular basis, or you make it into management, your time is limited by the up and out mentality of the organization as a whole. Amazon has created the perfect scenario to spend shitloads of money getting talent up to speed, only to part ways with them shortly thereafter.
      - amzn-throw 4y ago
orwin 4y ago
Funny, i had this conversation 5 hours ago with my tech lead and my engineering manager. We talked about how we want to change our design to copy AWS. Because it's standards, and our users (internal users) know how to use it.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

chickenpotpie 4y ago

> damnit, fine we'll pretend to be a tape library IIRC, they may not be pretending. It's not public knowledge what storage medium AWS glacier is built on, but many speculate it is actually tape.

capableweb 4y ago
Well, they do call it "virtual tapes", would be weird (maybe even illegal? False/misleading advertisement?) if they ended up storing it on physical tapes anyways. Edit: found in another thread here, the inventor linked the patent (https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/10013166 https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloa...) which confirms it's virtual tapes, not actual tapes.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Well, they do call it "virtual tapes", would be weird (maybe even illegal? False/misleading advertisement?) if they ended up storing it on physical tapes anyways. No, just like it is not weird and definitely not illegal for the things they call “virtual machines” to end up being run on actual machines.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    If you purchase a service describing it as "isolated virtual machines" and it ends up just being processes on a computer without any virtualization, wouldn't you call that at least misleading?
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      Well, yes, because the “isolated” is false, not because the “virtual machine” abstraction is realized on a real machine.
      - capableweb 4y ago
        Right. If it says "Virtual machines" and it isn't, you wouldn't call that at least misleading?
        iamtedd 4y ago
        I think you're misunderstanding the scenario. What if each 'virtual' machine is actually bare metal i.e.: every EC2 instance is actually a separate computer? There's still isolation, there's just no virtualisation abstraction.
        xboxnolifes 4y ago
        What if your goal was to test virtual machine feature and performance parity to real machine? Is that not misleading?
  - adrianmonk 4y ago
    Also virtual memory backed by physical memory, virtual credit card numbers for a real credit card, and virtual desktops displayed on real desktops.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- theamk 4y ago
  It would be "virtual tape" over S3 API over whatever technology AWS uses for glacier over physical tape. They physical tapes, if any, would be many layers down.
adamsb6 4y ago
My knowledge is a decade old, so they very well may be using tape now, but were not originally. At announcement time Glacier was using super dense racks of hard disks but only powering a subset of them. This led to some tape-like behaviors, like your restore request might take a long time to process because your data was likely stored on disks that weren't powered on and you'd need to wait for them to come online.
- dastbe 4y ago
  i'd (probably apocryphally) heard at announcement it was just s3 under the hood to support customers while they built the dataplane out :)

0xbadcafebee 4y ago

When someone is waving money in your face and saying "please just give me the thing I want and I will give you all this money", it's ridiculous not to listen. So many competitors just don't listen.

capableweb 4y ago
> So many competitors just don't listen Sometimes people build things/products/companies/whatever not because of the chase of money, but because they want to put their idea in the world. Maybe it's just a case of someone believing they can build something grander :)

fnordpiglet 4y ago

It’s not that weird. Tape libraries are well established and have well vetted highly reliable semantics that are deeply ingrained in many companies way of working. What’s weird is companies trying to sell some completely new way of achieving similar results and being surprised when the universe doesn’t reengineer everything as homage to their brilliance

derefr 4y ago
> What’s weird is companies trying to sell some completely new way of achieving similar results and being surprised when the universe doesn’t reengineer everything as homage to their brilliance Some abstractions can be proven to be objectively-better solutions, along some axes you care about, for your use-case, such that the existing abstraction you were relying upon is then provably sub-optimal. Switching to the more-optimal abstraction is not then an "homage to the brilliance" of the company that created the abstraction; it's a simple "pay CapEx to lower OpEx in a way that will pay itself back after N years" decision. If you can budget it, you do it. I'm not saying that every abstraction that the IaaS vendors invent is this kind of better mouse-trap, mind you. You can usually distinguish the ones that are, because they get independently reimplemented and used by people who aren't just aiming to build "cloud-native" software, but instead just really want/need the semantics of that particular abstraction, independent of where it runs. Object storage is a great example of an abstraction where that is the case. There are many things that do object storage now — both cloud services, and regular deployable software. In fact, even the more-traditional backup vendors, like Backblaze, now also offer object-storage APIs.

CSMastermind 4y ago

I use AWS at the companies I work for because of their amazing customer service. I'm fairly critical of Amazon's engineering culture and practices but as a customer I have to admit they are head and shoulders above their competition and frankly most SaaS providers as a whole. They've secured millions of dollars in revenue from me alone just by being so customer friendly.

oneplane 4y ago
Yep, that's been my experience as well. AWS (and Amazon as a whole) are bad for the people that work there, but as for their service offerings, it would take GCP and Azure combined to get even close.
- MisterPea 4y ago
  I think if you took a poll of AWS workers you'd find that most enjoy it. The culture leads to a vocal minority who REALLY hate it but my time there was some of the most enjoyable I've ever had. I've worked with some of the smartest people in the tech field, building products from scratch for billion dollar customers and learning every day. I've always told people that it's probably the best place you can start out of college. EDIT: This was back in 2016, I'm not sure how much has changed without Bezos and Jassy at helm of AWS
  - posguy 4y ago
    Amazon is a turn and burn employer at its heart. I've watched dozens of friends and acquaintances work there, rarely making it past 2 years, only to leave for less caustic organization thereafter. Unless your willing to put up with a huge ration of shit on a regular basis, or you make it into management, your time is limited by the up and out mentality of the organization as a whole. Amazon has created the perfect scenario to spend shitloads of money getting talent up to speed, only to part ways with them shortly thereafter.
    - amzn-throw 4y ago

orwin 4y ago

Funny, i had this conversation 5 hours ago with my tech lead and my engineering manager. We talked about how we want to change our design to copy AWS. Because it's standards, and our users (internal users) know how to use it.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]