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This is the flipside of data residency requirements that countries are now starting to require. If the EU wants to keep data in the EU, then great, but when the

This is the flipside of data residency requirements that countries are now starting to require. If the EU wants to keep data in the EU, then great, but when the war comes and energy and infrastructure are hit, people would have wished for backups in North America, Asia, and the middle east.

kibwen 1mo ago
For long-term backups you want offline cold storage in an underground facility in a friendly jurisdiction, not a datacenter.
- bigiain 1mo ago
  We've beer-o-clock wargamed this a bit. If I had an "important enough" client, I think I'd store all out local (Sydney + Melbourne AWS cross region) data to AWS Singapore (to protect against Australian jurisdictional and political risks) and to a non AWS cloud provider in the EU somewhere. I reckon thatd be close to as resilient a pile of hard drives in an underground bunker, for significantly less setup and ongoing cost, while also being much more available when needed. (Can you imagine the queue at the underground bunker when multiple AWS regions get bombed? Or even imagine getting to the bunker in "a friendly jurisdiction" while a shooting war is taking place?) We haven't worked out a decent solution to Visa and Mastercard payment network going down for more than a couple of cloud billing cycles though.
  - mitxela 1mo ago
    More likely than the network going down is you getting banned from the network because someone thought you were selling porn.
watwut 1mo ago
War did not randomly came. America intentionally caused it. And has lawless goverment and unaccountable tech industry making it bad place for data.
- aprilthird2021 1mo ago
  I wonder if Amazon can sue the US govt bc they basically caused this material loss to their business. I'm sure they cannot. Maybe a lawyer can explain why?
  - nradov 1mo ago
    In US courts you can sue anyone for anything but you might not win. The US government has sovereign immunity from most civil liability. As for the legal system in Bahrain I have no idea but hypothetically even if Amazon could somehow win a judgment they wouldn't be able to collect.
    - jeltz 1mo ago
      Why wouldn't they be able to collect? As long as Amazon does business in a country the legal system in that country can collect.
      - mitxela 1mo ago
        How would the Bahrain legal system force the USA to pay reparations for the war it started? Seize all US assets, the way we did with Russia?
        jeltz 1mo ago
        I mean that is how it works in all legal systems. If you refuse to pay your assets will be seized. Which is why they would almost certainly not refuse.
        mitxela 1mo ago
        What assets does the US have in Bahrain? Military bases? How do you seize a military base without getting blown up? The US would obviously retaliate by seizing Bahrain's assets in the US, which probably includes 100% of Bahrain's money (small countries don't get to have independent financial systems).
BonoboIO 1mo ago
If you can not restore data from EU based Amazon Datacenters because it’s destroyed … you will definitely have better things to do like packing your go bag or buying the last groceries for a while.
- fooker 1mo ago
  Ah yeah, the EU, a historically stable area.
  - sire-vc 1mo ago
    Border between France and Germany is a particularly well know peaceful area, especially Alsace-Lorraine.
    - fooker 1mo ago
      Clearly the best place to put all your factories!
numpad0 1mo ago
I don't think this is a flipside, unless you're thinking from the PoV of data itself rather than its owners.
Barrin92 1mo ago
data residency requirements in the EU don't categorically exclude data storage in other countries. The EDPB explicitly recognizes encrypted backups, for example, as valid as long as the keys remain in the EU and there's a secure transfer mechanism (p. 30) exactly for reasons such as disaster recovery. https://www.edpb.europa.eu/system/files/documents/2021-06/edpb_recommendations_202001vo.2.0_supplementarymeasurestransferstools_en.pdf https://www.edpb.europa.eu/system/files/documents/2021-06/ed...
flumpcakes 1mo ago
The EU is big enough to house multiple regions for multiple cloud providers, all in the same jurisdiction (so they can actually be used within data sovereignty requirements). Not true for most of the other places in Asia/UK/South America/etc.
- bigiain 1mo ago
  I'm comfortable enough with the Sydney and Melbourne AWS regions - about 700km (400 miles) apart and with (at least) 3 AZs in each. If something takes out enough AWS datacenters to lose some of work's or client data stored across all that, the uptime and resilience of the CRUD platforms I'm responsible for will not be very high on my personal priority list. (At least on AWS datacenter is within 10km of my home. I'm hoping that well before Australia gets involved in the sort of geopolitical conflict that might mean missile strikes against civilian infrastructure, I'll have headed bush to hang out with my off grid friends)

kibwen 1mo ago

For long-term backups you want offline cold storage in an underground facility in a friendly jurisdiction, not a datacenter.

bigiain 1mo ago
We've beer-o-clock wargamed this a bit. If I had an "important enough" client, I think I'd store all out local (Sydney + Melbourne AWS cross region) data to AWS Singapore (to protect against Australian jurisdictional and political risks) and to a non AWS cloud provider in the EU somewhere. I reckon thatd be close to as resilient a pile of hard drives in an underground bunker, for significantly less setup and ongoing cost, while also being much more available when needed. (Can you imagine the queue at the underground bunker when multiple AWS regions get bombed? Or even imagine getting to the bunker in "a friendly jurisdiction" while a shooting war is taking place?) We haven't worked out a decent solution to Visa and Mastercard payment network going down for more than a couple of cloud billing cycles though.
- mitxela 1mo ago
  More likely than the network going down is you getting banned from the network because someone thought you were selling porn.

watwut 1mo ago

War did not randomly came. America intentionally caused it. And has lawless goverment and unaccountable tech industry making it bad place for data.

aprilthird2021 1mo ago
I wonder if Amazon can sue the US govt bc they basically caused this material loss to their business. I'm sure they cannot. Maybe a lawyer can explain why?
- nradov 1mo ago
  In US courts you can sue anyone for anything but you might not win. The US government has sovereign immunity from most civil liability. As for the legal system in Bahrain I have no idea but hypothetically even if Amazon could somehow win a judgment they wouldn't be able to collect.
  - jeltz 1mo ago
    Why wouldn't they be able to collect? As long as Amazon does business in a country the legal system in that country can collect.
    - mitxela 1mo ago
      How would the Bahrain legal system force the USA to pay reparations for the war it started? Seize all US assets, the way we did with Russia?
      - jeltz 1mo ago
        I mean that is how it works in all legal systems. If you refuse to pay your assets will be seized. Which is why they would almost certainly not refuse.
        mitxela 1mo ago
        What assets does the US have in Bahrain? Military bases? How do you seize a military base without getting blown up? The US would obviously retaliate by seizing Bahrain's assets in the US, which probably includes 100% of Bahrain's money (small countries don't get to have independent financial systems).

BonoboIO 1mo ago

If you can not restore data from EU based Amazon Datacenters because it’s destroyed … you will definitely have better things to do like packing your go bag or buying the last groceries for a while.

fooker 1mo ago
Ah yeah, the EU, a historically stable area.
- sire-vc 1mo ago
  Border between France and Germany is a particularly well know peaceful area, especially Alsace-Lorraine.
  - fooker 1mo ago
    Clearly the best place to put all your factories!

numpad0 1mo ago

I don't think this is a flipside, unless you're thinking from the PoV of data itself rather than its owners.

Barrin92 1mo ago

data residency requirements in the EU don't categorically exclude data storage in other countries. The EDPB explicitly recognizes encrypted backups, for example, as valid as long as the keys remain in the EU and there's a secure transfer mechanism (p. 30) exactly for reasons such as disaster recovery. https://www.edpb.europa.eu/system/files/documents/2021-06/edpb_recommendations_202001vo.2.0_supplementarymeasurestransferstools_en.pdf https://www.edpb.europa.eu/system/files/documents/2021-06/ed...

flumpcakes 1mo ago

The EU is big enough to house multiple regions for multiple cloud providers, all in the same jurisdiction (so they can actually be used within data sovereignty requirements). Not true for most of the other places in Asia/UK/South America/etc.

bigiain 1mo ago
I'm comfortable enough with the Sydney and Melbourne AWS regions - about 700km (400 miles) apart and with (at least) 3 AZs in each. If something takes out enough AWS datacenters to lose some of work's or client data stored across all that, the uptime and resilience of the CRUD platforms I'm responsible for will not be very high on my personal priority list. (At least on AWS datacenter is within 10km of my home. I'm hoping that well before Australia gets involved in the sort of geopolitical conflict that might mean missile strikes against civilian infrastructure, I'll have headed bush to hang out with my off grid friends)