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While there are a lot of AWS offerings/cloud services which have vendor lockin, the core EC2 API is supported by Eucalyptus (http://eucalyptus.com http://eucaly

by nlake44 14y ago

While there are a lot of AWS offerings/cloud services which have vendor lockin, the core EC2 API is supported by Eucalyptus (http://eucalyptus.com http://eucalyptus.com) and OpenStack (http://openstack.com http://openstack.com).

jdunck 14y ago
I don't think it's fair to call richer services lockin. GAE has lockin, in my opinion, because basic services use GAE-specific APIs and common needs (like scheduled jobs) are accomplished in uncommon ways. If you're using auto-scaling or beanstalk or whatever, that's an example of AWS offering something where there isn't a norm, isn't a "normal way" to do it, and if you need that thing, your other alternative is to build it yourself - which is still an option should you decide to move away from AWS. Lockin is avoidable switching cost which benefit the party imposing the switching cost. Are there examples of AWS doing that?
- bermanoid 14y ago
  One I can think of is related to RDS - if you run your own MySQL instances, you can pretty easily migrate away to another set of (MySQL) machines by replicating off the master onto a new slave, and then promoting the slave to master and shutting down the original master. RDS doesn't allow (external) replication, so your only option to get away from RDS altogether is to do a mysqldump, which can get nasty if you are trying to migrate away without downtime (a full export/import via mysqldump can take a long time, and you'll miss any updates during the process). At the very least, it involves either a chunk of downtime or a decent bit of manual migration, which is unfortunate. That said, I don't think they set it up this way to specifically cause lock-in, it's just technically difficult to allow users to manually manage replication alongside RDSs automated system.
  - foolinator 14y ago
    Their messaging is a non-standard protocol. AMQP standard would be kick ass. Same with their cloud search - sooo obviously solr/lucene-based but 0 exposure to the lucene syntax. Not a big deal though, it's not like it totally locks you in to use these.
    - ceejayoz 14y ago
      > Same with their cloud search - sooo obviously solr/lucene-based Except it isn't. http://aws.amazon.com/cloudsearch/ http://aws.amazon.com/cloudsearch/ "Amazon CloudSearch was created from the same A9 technology that powers search on Amazon.com."
- nlake44 14y ago
  Well my team and I have been working on AppScale for the past 3-4 years to do away with the lock-in for GAE. They iterate pretty fast on their platform, so we're always playing catch up. Eucalyptus and AWS did recently partner, so AWS has come around to supporting other implementations of their API. The EC2 API getting further reach is a good thing in my opinion for AWS even if they aren't directly making money off of it. Google has been cognizant of this from the beginning and hence why they helped fund AppScale.

by nlake44 14y ago

jdunck 14y ago

I don't think it's fair to call richer services lockin. GAE has lockin, in my opinion, because basic services use GAE-specific APIs and common needs (like scheduled jobs) are accomplished in uncommon ways. If you're using auto-scaling or beanstalk or whatever, that's an example of AWS offering something where there isn't a norm, isn't a "normal way" to do it, and if you need that thing, your other alternative is to build it yourself - which is still an option should you decide to move away from AWS. Lockin is avoidable switching cost which benefit the party imposing the switching cost. Are there examples of AWS doing that?

bermanoid 14y ago
One I can think of is related to RDS - if you run your own MySQL instances, you can pretty easily migrate away to another set of (MySQL) machines by replicating off the master onto a new slave, and then promoting the slave to master and shutting down the original master. RDS doesn't allow (external) replication, so your only option to get away from RDS altogether is to do a mysqldump, which can get nasty if you are trying to migrate away without downtime (a full export/import via mysqldump can take a long time, and you'll miss any updates during the process). At the very least, it involves either a chunk of downtime or a decent bit of manual migration, which is unfortunate. That said, I don't think they set it up this way to specifically cause lock-in, it's just technically difficult to allow users to manually manage replication alongside RDSs automated system.
- foolinator 14y ago
  Their messaging is a non-standard protocol. AMQP standard would be kick ass. Same with their cloud search - sooo obviously solr/lucene-based but 0 exposure to the lucene syntax. Not a big deal though, it's not like it totally locks you in to use these.
  - ceejayoz 14y ago
    > Same with their cloud search - sooo obviously solr/lucene-based Except it isn't. http://aws.amazon.com/cloudsearch/ http://aws.amazon.com/cloudsearch/ "Amazon CloudSearch was created from the same A9 technology that powers search on Amazon.com."
nlake44 14y ago
Well my team and I have been working on AppScale for the past 3-4 years to do away with the lock-in for GAE. They iterate pretty fast on their platform, so we're always playing catch up. Eucalyptus and AWS did recently partner, so AWS has come around to supporting other implementations of their API. The EC2 API getting further reach is a good thing in my opinion for AWS even if they aren't directly making money off of it. Google has been cognizant of this from the beginning and hence why they helped fund AppScale.