4 ms·

Calling the team at AWS "amateurs" is a great way to discredit everything the author wrote. AWS is a gigantic infrastructure and they got everything fixed IN LE

Calling the team at AWS "amateurs" is a great way to discredit everything the author wrote. AWS is a gigantic infrastructure and they got everything fixed IN LESS THAN 48 HOURS. That is not an amateur response time. Sorry their updates weren't to your liking but they were responding and posting bulletins the whole time and again: they solved the issue very quickly given the number of clients they support.

chris_wot 13y ago
The way they communicated it was very, very amateurish. They needed to know when they could re-key their certs - seems like it was impossible to tell. That's something that needed to be done ASAP. Without knowing precisely when the environment that affected them was updated, this client couldn't get that done as quickly as they might have.
- exelius 13y ago
  It's not amateurish, it was just poor communication in a situation that they've (fortunately) not had to deal with. Which happens from time to time; and good companies recognize their failures and fix them. One thing I know about Amazon from friends who work there is that they don't tolerate failure. They have a culture of owning your mistakes and fixing them; anyone who doesn't buy into that attitude will get fired pretty quickly (and Amazon fires a lot of people.) It's pretty fucking professional to update the infrastructure that runs half the internet in under 48 hours with no issues. But again, communication can be a problem when you have as many customers as they do. OP raised some legitimate concerns, but his credibility was undercut by attacking Amazon and calling them names. Ironically, his post was a much more amateur move as his concerns would likely be taken more seriously if he had stuck to the issues and not resorted to name-calling. The essence of professionalism is sticking to the issues at hand and not being sidetracked by extraneous factors.
  - alttab 13y ago
    The nail in the coffin was some comment at the end about moving off of AWS to something else over blog posts lacking timestamps.
kordless 13y ago
> sorry their updates weren't to your liking but... Folks, this is an account created 19 hours ago making half an apology and then rationalizing not listening to customers because they solved a "big" problem quickly. That's an ad hominum argument and as a result, a big tell on intent. From my perspective, pushing out a new SSL build to a bunch of load balancers in a highly automated network like AWS is probably, by this point, a trivial task. Actually listening to the customer and responding decently is MUCH harder. Clearly it could be done better, which is the point of the post. Rise above getting offended/scared about being called "amateurs" and start talking more about what goes on in that creepy black box that is AWS. You owe the world that much, at the very least.
- thathonkey 13y ago
  Hey there super sleuth... not sure what you're trying to imply but I'm not affiliated with Amazon nor do I use their AWS service. I do not speak for them. I am not making an apology on their behalf. I suggest you stop levying false accusations and avoid using words that you simply don't understand ie. ad hominum (not only did you spell it wrong, but you've misapplied it). To clarify: I'm a long time HN reader that finally got around to making an account (and certainly not for the express purpose of defending Amazon). However, I did want to call the author out on writing a terribly unfair knee-jerk, heat-of-the-moment indictment of AWS (this type of thing is unfortunately all-too-common in the tech community: actual amateurs writing as if they are a central authority about subjects that they have something approaching 0 understanding of. For example: the multitude of complex engineering and PR challenges a service provider like AWS faces during something like the Great OpenSSL Exploit of 2014). What I'm trying to say is: cut them some slack. Their response seemed perfectly reasonable to me. Hope this helps.
  - narrowrail 13y ago
    As a long time HN reader, you should know that the condescending "super sleuth" mention was unecessary. It should also be apparent that your highly defensive comment with a very new account would raise eyebrows. The "hope this helps" ending also comes off as passive-aggressive. We can do better.

chris_wot 13y ago

The way they communicated it was very, very amateurish. They needed to know when they could re-key their certs - seems like it was impossible to tell. That's something that needed to be done ASAP. Without knowing precisely when the environment that affected them was updated, this client couldn't get that done as quickly as they might have.

exelius 13y ago
It's not amateurish, it was just poor communication in a situation that they've (fortunately) not had to deal with. Which happens from time to time; and good companies recognize their failures and fix them. One thing I know about Amazon from friends who work there is that they don't tolerate failure. They have a culture of owning your mistakes and fixing them; anyone who doesn't buy into that attitude will get fired pretty quickly (and Amazon fires a lot of people.) It's pretty fucking professional to update the infrastructure that runs half the internet in under 48 hours with no issues. But again, communication can be a problem when you have as many customers as they do. OP raised some legitimate concerns, but his credibility was undercut by attacking Amazon and calling them names. Ironically, his post was a much more amateur move as his concerns would likely be taken more seriously if he had stuck to the issues and not resorted to name-calling. The essence of professionalism is sticking to the issues at hand and not being sidetracked by extraneous factors.
- alttab 13y ago
  The nail in the coffin was some comment at the end about moving off of AWS to something else over blog posts lacking timestamps.

kordless 13y ago

> sorry their updates weren't to your liking but... Folks, this is an account created 19 hours ago making half an apology and then rationalizing not listening to customers because they solved a "big" problem quickly. That's an ad hominum argument and as a result, a big tell on intent. From my perspective, pushing out a new SSL build to a bunch of load balancers in a highly automated network like AWS is probably, by this point, a trivial task. Actually listening to the customer and responding decently is MUCH harder. Clearly it could be done better, which is the point of the post. Rise above getting offended/scared about being called "amateurs" and start talking more about what goes on in that creepy black box that is AWS. You owe the world that much, at the very least.

thathonkey 13y ago
Hey there super sleuth... not sure what you're trying to imply but I'm not affiliated with Amazon nor do I use their AWS service. I do not speak for them. I am not making an apology on their behalf. I suggest you stop levying false accusations and avoid using words that you simply don't understand ie. ad hominum (not only did you spell it wrong, but you've misapplied it). To clarify: I'm a long time HN reader that finally got around to making an account (and certainly not for the express purpose of defending Amazon). However, I did want to call the author out on writing a terribly unfair knee-jerk, heat-of-the-moment indictment of AWS (this type of thing is unfortunately all-too-common in the tech community: actual amateurs writing as if they are a central authority about subjects that they have something approaching 0 understanding of. For example: the multitude of complex engineering and PR challenges a service provider like AWS faces during something like the Great OpenSSL Exploit of 2014). What I'm trying to say is: cut them some slack. Their response seemed perfectly reasonable to me. Hope this helps.
- narrowrail 13y ago
  As a long time HN reader, you should know that the condescending "super sleuth" mention was unecessary. It should also be apparent that your highly defensive comment with a very new account would raise eyebrows. The "hope this helps" ending also comes off as passive-aggressive. We can do better.