7 ms·

Why Amazon Hired a Car Mechanic to Run Its Cloud Empire

145 points by sk2code 14y ago

gabriele 14y ago
nice read. It's also worth mentioning that James Hamilton's personal website [1] has been hosted by Godaddy ever since, including the domain's name servers. [1] http://mvdirona.com http://mvdirona.com
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
hudibras 14y ago
Every cruiser between Ketchikan and Bellingham has a copy of the Hamiltons' book on board: http://www.amazon.com/Waggoner-Cruising-Guides-Secret-Coast/dp/0935727299 http://www.amazon.com/Waggoner-Cruising-Guides-Secret-Coast/... I didn't know he had a day job. A true renaissance man. Edit: I don't want to geek out too much over his boat, but Nordhavns are awesome. Comfortable, tremendous amounts of internal space, long range, and designed for real cruising. Here's a magazine article on the Hamilton boat [pdf]. The photos of the engineering spaces will make you cry. http://www.mvdirona.com/TechnicalArticles/TheHamiltonNordhavn.pdf http://www.mvdirona.com/TechnicalArticles/TheHamiltonNordhav...
- ScotterC 14y ago
  Yea there's only one problem with them. They're not sailboats :)
ableal 14y ago
"When Amazon’s EC2 and S3 web services arrived in 2006, they changed the computing business. Big server makers — most noticeably Sun Microsystems — had been tinkering with the idea of selling computer power in much the same way that utility companies sell power or water, but much to everyone’s surprise, Amazon — a seller of books and CDs — managed to produce a set of services that the market was willing to pay for." This reminded me of the Jonathan Schwartz (Sun's CEO) blog mentioning "Chief Electricity Officers" - I tracked down this archived copy of the March 2006 post: http://web.archive.org/web/20060720095546/http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan?entry=the_network_is_the_computer http://web.archive.org/web/20060720095546/http://blogs.sun.c... Tracking those words a little further back, I found this 2004 snippet: "Peter Gassner, Salesforce.com. Build or buy? No, subscribe. On-demand utility. Chief electricity officer was once a real position." ( http://www.jaycross.com/wp/category/just-jay/page/130/ http://www.jaycross.com/wp/category/just-jay/page/130/ ), besides Nicholas Carr and others elaborations of similar vintage. The ideas were definitely in the air, the problem was execution and delivery.
- balakk 14y ago
  I wonder, why doesn't Amazon venture into actual utilities business? As in making their own power plants(nuke/solar/whatever), and renting power out? I did remember reading about Bezos investing in a few energy companies, but nothing about Amazon.
  - jetti 14y ago
    First off, in some areas it is a regulated market which would prevent them from being able to do so (electricity at least). Second, it would be very expensive for very little gain. It wouldn't scale well and they would have a ton of new infrastructure to support. On top of that, they would have to compete with companies who already have customers. The electricity market has recently become unregulated in Illinois, and despite being able to save money using a different provider, I haven't switched from ComEd. The reason is that the savings isn't enough for me to justify the time spent actually comparing and seeing if I save and then switching providers. Amazon would be up against this same kind of apathy, which would only occur after they get some sort of infrastructure up and going. Meaning they would have sunk capital into a business for nothing.
- snowwrestler 14y ago
  Funny to see how frequently the word "grid" is sprinkled into that blog post. Now we use "cloud" the same way. It illustrates how silly the industry gets about using/abusing whatever the latest buzzword is. Larry Ellison, of all people, nails it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FacYAI6DY0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FacYAI6DY0
roel_v 14y ago
It's kind of frustrating that otherwise interesting articles like this get buried under misleading titles like this, with a guy who some 30 years once worked on cars (high-end, cutting edge cars - not changing oil and brake pads on VW Jetta's) now working for a company that didn't even exist when he was a mechanic being described as 'Amazon hired car mechanic'. Michael Dell used to stock shelves in his youth, should newspapers run headlines like 'shelf stocker taking computer manufacturer private in 25B leveraged buyout'? Please. </grump_mode>
- dpcx 14y ago
  Agreed. I was looking for something particular about why they hired a mechanic, since that's what it suggests in the title.
  - walshemj 14y ago
    Probably because designing and running a big DC crosses discipline boundrys that a pure CS guy would not have the skills. As Seymore Cray said he was more a plumber that a computer guy - well strictly speaking cooling HPC's is more fluid dynamics rather than a domestic plumber.
  - orangethirty 14y ago
    I used to be a mechanic, so maybe I can shed some insight. My work experience was very varied, but I mostly focused on luxury(Porsche, BMW) cars towards the last years or so. Being a mechanic gives you a different perspective on software. You don't see code ad code, but as an engine. If the engine is not tuned properly, the engine will not be as efficient as possible. If there is too much cruft in the code, the engine will perform poorly. Troubleshooting is also easier, I think. Due to the fact that all that mechanics due is troubleshoot. I once spent a week chasing an electrical bug on a Porsche. For those curious, it was the car's computer going bad (a circuit connection somehow broke under stress and it shorted). It also makes design a bit easier, because I have seen many different design patterns IRL. When you can touch and feel a design, working with them is much easier. For example, the camshaft is a function that makes valves open and close. The camshaft lobes are the parameters being passed as data to the camshaft function. The parameters tell the camshaft function how far should valves open, and for how much time. It also removes any fear from working with any system. I've seen and fixed it all. There is no way any codebase will turn out to be harder to fix than changing the spark plugs on a 1996 Porsche 911 Turbo. No way.
muench 14y ago
This link from the article on his analysis of preventing the Super Bowl power failure is pure gold: http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/2013/02/04/ThePowerFailureSeenAroundTheWorld.aspx http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/2013/02/04/ThePowerFailureS...
sriramk 14y ago
James is amazing at getting together people inside these big companies. His talk series at MSFT was legendary. His asking me to present at his talks when I was just a couple of years out of school opened the door for many good things for me at MSFT.
chokolad 14y ago
Car Mechanic? He was a Lead Architect for DB2, worked in various Lead/Architect roles on Microsoft SQL Server since SQL server 7.0, etc http://www.mvdirona.com/jrh/Work/default.htm http://www.mvdirona.com/jrh/Work/default.htm
- orangethirty 14y ago
  From 1980-1982 he worked as a mechanic. Its in his resume.
- j-kidd 14y ago
  Actually, the title: "Why Amazon Hired the Lead Architect for DB2 and SQL Server to Run Its Cloud Empire" would instill much less confidence than the current one, consider how bad those products are compared to one that has proper architecture (i.e. PostgreSQL).
  - chokolad 14y ago
    Care to elaborate ?
fyuui 14y ago
Because software people get's no respect
efalcao 14y ago
Best hair ever http://mvdirona.com/jrh/work/JamesHamilton.jpg http://mvdirona.com/jrh/work/JamesHamilton.jpg
robwgibbons 14y ago
Boy, I love linkbait fucking titles. Lambos are not "cars" they are highly refined, intricately tuned instruments.

145 points by sk2code 14y ago

nice read. It's also worth mentioning that James Hamilton's personal website [1] has been hosted by Godaddy ever since, including the domain's name servers. [1] http://mvdirona.com http://mvdirona.com

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

hudibras 14y ago

Every cruiser between Ketchikan and Bellingham has a copy of the Hamiltons' book on board: http://www.amazon.com/Waggoner-Cruising-Guides-Secret-Coast/dp/0935727299 http://www.amazon.com/Waggoner-Cruising-Guides-Secret-Coast/... I didn't know he had a day job. A true renaissance man. Edit: I don't want to geek out too much over his boat, but Nordhavns are awesome. Comfortable, tremendous amounts of internal space, long range, and designed for real cruising. Here's a magazine article on the Hamilton boat [pdf]. The photos of the engineering spaces will make you cry. http://www.mvdirona.com/TechnicalArticles/TheHamiltonNordhavn.pdf http://www.mvdirona.com/TechnicalArticles/TheHamiltonNordhav...

ScotterC 14y ago
Yea there's only one problem with them. They're not sailboats :)

ableal 14y ago

"When Amazon’s EC2 and S3 web services arrived in 2006, they changed the computing business. Big server makers — most noticeably Sun Microsystems — had been tinkering with the idea of selling computer power in much the same way that utility companies sell power or water, but much to everyone’s surprise, Amazon — a seller of books and CDs — managed to produce a set of services that the market was willing to pay for." This reminded me of the Jonathan Schwartz (Sun's CEO) blog mentioning "Chief Electricity Officers" - I tracked down this archived copy of the March 2006 post: http://web.archive.org/web/20060720095546/http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan?entry=the_network_is_the_computer http://web.archive.org/web/20060720095546/http://blogs.sun.c... Tracking those words a little further back, I found this 2004 snippet: "Peter Gassner, Salesforce.com. Build or buy? No, subscribe. On-demand utility. Chief electricity officer was once a real position." ( http://www.jaycross.com/wp/category/just-jay/page/130/ http://www.jaycross.com/wp/category/just-jay/page/130/ ), besides Nicholas Carr and others elaborations of similar vintage. The ideas were definitely in the air, the problem was execution and delivery.

balakk 14y ago
I wonder, why doesn't Amazon venture into actual utilities business? As in making their own power plants(nuke/solar/whatever), and renting power out? I did remember reading about Bezos investing in a few energy companies, but nothing about Amazon.
- jetti 14y ago
  First off, in some areas it is a regulated market which would prevent them from being able to do so (electricity at least). Second, it would be very expensive for very little gain. It wouldn't scale well and they would have a ton of new infrastructure to support. On top of that, they would have to compete with companies who already have customers. The electricity market has recently become unregulated in Illinois, and despite being able to save money using a different provider, I haven't switched from ComEd. The reason is that the savings isn't enough for me to justify the time spent actually comparing and seeing if I save and then switching providers. Amazon would be up against this same kind of apathy, which would only occur after they get some sort of infrastructure up and going. Meaning they would have sunk capital into a business for nothing.
snowwrestler 14y ago
Funny to see how frequently the word "grid" is sprinkled into that blog post. Now we use "cloud" the same way. It illustrates how silly the industry gets about using/abusing whatever the latest buzzword is. Larry Ellison, of all people, nails it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FacYAI6DY0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FacYAI6DY0

roel_v 14y ago

It's kind of frustrating that otherwise interesting articles like this get buried under misleading titles like this, with a guy who some 30 years once worked on cars (high-end, cutting edge cars - not changing oil and brake pads on VW Jetta's) now working for a company that didn't even exist when he was a mechanic being described as 'Amazon hired car mechanic'. Michael Dell used to stock shelves in his youth, should newspapers run headlines like 'shelf stocker taking computer manufacturer private in 25B leveraged buyout'? Please. </grump_mode>

dpcx 14y ago
Agreed. I was looking for something particular about why they hired a mechanic, since that's what it suggests in the title.
- walshemj 14y ago
  Probably because designing and running a big DC crosses discipline boundrys that a pure CS guy would not have the skills. As Seymore Cray said he was more a plumber that a computer guy - well strictly speaking cooling HPC's is more fluid dynamics rather than a domestic plumber.
- orangethirty 14y ago
  I used to be a mechanic, so maybe I can shed some insight. My work experience was very varied, but I mostly focused on luxury(Porsche, BMW) cars towards the last years or so. Being a mechanic gives you a different perspective on software. You don't see code ad code, but as an engine. If the engine is not tuned properly, the engine will not be as efficient as possible. If there is too much cruft in the code, the engine will perform poorly. Troubleshooting is also easier, I think. Due to the fact that all that mechanics due is troubleshoot. I once spent a week chasing an electrical bug on a Porsche. For those curious, it was the car's computer going bad (a circuit connection somehow broke under stress and it shorted). It also makes design a bit easier, because I have seen many different design patterns IRL. When you can touch and feel a design, working with them is much easier. For example, the camshaft is a function that makes valves open and close. The camshaft lobes are the parameters being passed as data to the camshaft function. The parameters tell the camshaft function how far should valves open, and for how much time. It also removes any fear from working with any system. I've seen and fixed it all. There is no way any codebase will turn out to be harder to fix than changing the spark plugs on a 1996 Porsche 911 Turbo. No way.

muench 14y ago

This link from the article on his analysis of preventing the Super Bowl power failure is pure gold: http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/2013/02/04/ThePowerFailureSeenAroundTheWorld.aspx http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/2013/02/04/ThePowerFailureS...

sriramk 14y ago

James is amazing at getting together people inside these big companies. His talk series at MSFT was legendary. His asking me to present at his talks when I was just a couple of years out of school opened the door for many good things for me at MSFT.

chokolad 14y ago

Car Mechanic? He was a Lead Architect for DB2, worked in various Lead/Architect roles on Microsoft SQL Server since SQL server 7.0, etc http://www.mvdirona.com/jrh/Work/default.htm http://www.mvdirona.com/jrh/Work/default.htm

orangethirty 14y ago
From 1980-1982 he worked as a mechanic. Its in his resume.
j-kidd 14y ago
Actually, the title: "Why Amazon Hired the Lead Architect for DB2 and SQL Server to Run Its Cloud Empire" would instill much less confidence than the current one, consider how bad those products are compared to one that has proper architecture (i.e. PostgreSQL).
- chokolad 14y ago
  Care to elaborate ?

fyuui 14y ago

Because software people get's no respect

efalcao 14y ago

Best hair ever http://mvdirona.com/jrh/work/JamesHamilton.jpg http://mvdirona.com/jrh/work/JamesHamilton.jpg

robwgibbons 14y ago

Boy, I love linkbait fucking titles. Lambos are not "cars" they are highly refined, intricately tuned instruments.