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Naive question: What are they using EBS for? It seems unnecessary given all the Databases. Is that just local caching for EC2's?
by mokarma 3y ago
Naive question: What are they using EBS for? It seems unnecessary given all the Databases. Is that just local caching for EC2's?
- cj 3y agoEBS is just a networked hard drive, so they could really be using it for anything storage related. Is Amazon’s general architecture for their retail site publicly described anywhere?
- yowlingcat 3y agoWell, not to answer your question with a question, but what would you imagine backs all of those database services? Or, said another way, I'm not sure Corey Quinn is mapping the cost dependency graph correctly by giving this breakdown as mutually exclusive (from the standpoint of AWS internally).
- OJFord 3y agoWell, without precluding other use, not even specifically caching but just disk for EC2 instances.
- ripper1138 3y agoIt’s disk storage for EC2
- nonameiguess 3y agoAt minimum, root volumes for the VMs. Theoretically, you could load immutable machine images from the network and run entirely off of in-memory filesystems if you persist nothing past instance shutdown (similar to how extremely cautious people might run Tails booted off USB on a laptop with no hard drive), but that won't actually save cost since memory is more expensive than disk anyway.
- thayne 3y agoI don't think you can even technically do that in AWS. I don't think there is any way to detach the root volume from a running instance, or use an immutable network image to boot from. However, for many server workloads, operating entirely would be reasonable. Often you just need the operating system kernel and your server software, and maybe a monitoring agent. And all of that will be loaded in memory anyway.