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That is really expensive. You can start provisioning your own HSM for well under $5000 (of course, you can spend as much as you want :). I'm guessing Amazon is

That is really expensive. You can start provisioning your own HSM for well under $5000 (of course, you can spend as much as you want :). I'm guessing Amazon is counting on people who have large AWS deployments and want a closer HSM. You are paying a lot to reduce latency.

jcase 13y ago
The Luna SA they are using doesn't come cheap. For an H/A setup with all the extras (backup tools, service contract) I was quoted ~$80k.
- SoftwareMaven 13y ago
  But the majority of people don't need that much HSM. And that's the interesting problem I see with this: the enterprise can afford it, but is going to be wary of using a cloud provider for this sensitive of data; and it's outside the budget of most startups. There is probably a tier in the middle, though, that Amazon expects will happily use the product.
  - count 13y ago
    If you're using an HSM for full DAR of your servers, you need all the H/A you can get. IF that HSM is down, you can't boot your systems, period. If that HSM crashes or is destroyed, you potentially lose everything.
count 13y ago
You're paying for way more than latency reduction. You're also eliminating the overhead of buying, provisioning, supporting, etc. the whole system (which is definitely not pain free). The latency reduction is a nice added benefit, but it's definitely not the main one. Where are you even going to put your $5k HSM? In your $50k colo cage? Under your desk and route out via your home cable modem?
- kordless 13y ago
  > $50k colo cage Can you provide some evidence around these types of costs and benefits over a reasonably secure rack in a reasonably secure data center?
  - count 13y ago
    I don't understand the question? What evidence do you need? That a colo cage can be $50k/yr? Call Equinix and ask for some dedicated space. Who's going to go through the trouble of buying and deploying full DAR with an HSM of their own, and then put it in a common shared hosting environment instead of a dedicated, secure environment?

jcase 13y ago

The Luna SA they are using doesn't come cheap. For an H/A setup with all the extras (backup tools, service contract) I was quoted ~$80k.

SoftwareMaven 13y ago
But the majority of people don't need that much HSM. And that's the interesting problem I see with this: the enterprise can afford it, but is going to be wary of using a cloud provider for this sensitive of data; and it's outside the budget of most startups. There is probably a tier in the middle, though, that Amazon expects will happily use the product.
- count 13y ago
  If you're using an HSM for full DAR of your servers, you need all the H/A you can get. IF that HSM is down, you can't boot your systems, period. If that HSM crashes or is destroyed, you potentially lose everything.

count 13y ago

You're paying for way more than latency reduction. You're also eliminating the overhead of buying, provisioning, supporting, etc. the whole system (which is definitely not pain free). The latency reduction is a nice added benefit, but it's definitely not the main one. Where are you even going to put your $5k HSM? In your $50k colo cage? Under your desk and route out via your home cable modem?

kordless 13y ago
> $50k colo cage Can you provide some evidence around these types of costs and benefits over a reasonably secure rack in a reasonably secure data center?
- count 13y ago
  I don't understand the question? What evidence do you need? That a colo cage can be $50k/yr? Call Equinix and ask for some dedicated space. Who's going to go through the trouble of buying and deploying full DAR with an HSM of their own, and then put it in a common shared hosting environment instead of a dedicated, secure environment?