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Amazon is systematically adding service upon service to their offering. I'll be interested to see where this ends up once they're all tightly integrated and wor

Amazon is systematically adding service upon service to their offering. I'll be interested to see where this ends up once they're all tightly integrated and working together.

im_dario 12y ago
Skynet, obviously.
awjr 12y ago
Well, when we looked at moving stuff to the 'cloud', Amazon offers so so much. In effect Amazon can provide a vendor lock-in through the range of services (and their quality) it provides. That is in no way a bad thing, but just shows how other 'cloud' providers need to keep playing catch-up. It's also an architecture consideration for the way we develop. Yes you want to use this Amazon feature, but if you do, moving to another provider becomes harder (e.g. we're looking to use SQS, but know if we moved provider I'd need to implement my own solution for that, probably mq rabbit). To rehash a classic phrase: "Nobody ever got fired for buying Amazon."
- spacefight 12y ago
  Since when is vendor lock-in a "in no way a bad thing"?
  - simonpantzare 12y ago
    "Lock-in through the range of services" is key. You can go all-in on AWS and use RDS, Directory Service, EMR and still be able to move off AWS and use the open source systems beneath. Granted, there are services like S3 that are proprietary but on the other hand you can move to something Riak CS that provides API compatibility with S3.
- rhizome 12y ago
  Since a big AWS selling point is headcount savings from outsourcing systems expertise, you would ideally be hiring an infrastructure engineer to implement the RabbitMQ, or at least to smooth the way.
- nnx 12y ago
  SQS works fine when used from other hosting providers (or even from client-side JavaScript for that matter - with the right IAM token).
  - ochoseis 12y ago
    Anyone think a remote directory service would work well if a lot of your infrastructure is hosted elsewhere? I wonder if latency would become an issue. Also, how hard is it to set up/care/feed a basic directory service? I've toyed with FreeIPA which was easy (http://www.freeipa.org/page/Main_Page http://www.freeipa.org/page/Main_Page, based on 389 DS). I actually did not realize Samba now includes a directory service and might check that out.
    - jon-wood 12y ago
      I can't say for certain, but I'd think a lot of this is actually built on top of OpenLDAP, with Samba just providing the compatibility layer for Windows clients.
    - sseveran 12y ago
      I burned a couple of weeks trying to setup a replicated freeipa environment. I was amazed that I could start with a brand new instance, run the same script and end up with different problems every time.
    - bdunbar 12y ago
      > Also, how hard is it to set up/care/feed a basic directory service? Setting one up is pretty easy. The problem comes in when you find yourself depending on it, and then it gets out of whack, or Just Grows and you've got OUs and CNs all over the place. At my last employer - a mid-sized manufacturer - we had several Tier II apps. These must be in working order or production is shut down. The shop floor application. Core ERP. Email. Above II is I which are applications that must exist or the company cannot operate. There was only one Tier I application: Active Directory.
mcnully 12y ago
here is what it looks like: amazon.com
ldng 12y ago
Well, a lot of concept we expect from a computer OS apply to distributed system. AWS, in a few years, might end up to look like less a IaaS and more as a PaaS platform, a Linux distrib for cluster if you wish. That is you could treat AWS/any cloud as a distributed OS for clusters with VM/containers as processes/threads and services as packages. It's more or less already roughly the case. Well, IMHO, it's the maturation path for the cloud I can imagine.
justicezyx 12y ago
When I left Amazon, I thought Google has no trouble to easily beat Amazon with its strong tech stack. Gradually I learnt that companies are different. If one company does one thing good, that usually means another company cannot easily catch up, even with obvious advantages. Now I seriously doubt how long will it takes for Google to be a meaningful competitor to AWS...

Amazon is systematically adding service upon service to their offering. I'll be interested to see where this ends up once they're all tightly integrated and working together.

im_dario 12y ago

Skynet, obviously.

awjr 12y ago

Well, when we looked at moving stuff to the 'cloud', Amazon offers so so much. In effect Amazon can provide a vendor lock-in through the range of services (and their quality) it provides. That is in no way a bad thing, but just shows how other 'cloud' providers need to keep playing catch-up. It's also an architecture consideration for the way we develop. Yes you want to use this Amazon feature, but if you do, moving to another provider becomes harder (e.g. we're looking to use SQS, but know if we moved provider I'd need to implement my own solution for that, probably mq rabbit). To rehash a classic phrase: "Nobody ever got fired for buying Amazon."

spacefight 12y ago
Since when is vendor lock-in a "in no way a bad thing"?
- simonpantzare 12y ago
  "Lock-in through the range of services" is key. You can go all-in on AWS and use RDS, Directory Service, EMR and still be able to move off AWS and use the open source systems beneath. Granted, there are services like S3 that are proprietary but on the other hand you can move to something Riak CS that provides API compatibility with S3.
rhizome 12y ago
Since a big AWS selling point is headcount savings from outsourcing systems expertise, you would ideally be hiring an infrastructure engineer to implement the RabbitMQ, or at least to smooth the way.
nnx 12y ago
SQS works fine when used from other hosting providers (or even from client-side JavaScript for that matter - with the right IAM token).
- ochoseis 12y ago
  Anyone think a remote directory service would work well if a lot of your infrastructure is hosted elsewhere? I wonder if latency would become an issue. Also, how hard is it to set up/care/feed a basic directory service? I've toyed with FreeIPA which was easy (http://www.freeipa.org/page/Main_Page http://www.freeipa.org/page/Main_Page, based on 389 DS). I actually did not realize Samba now includes a directory service and might check that out.
  - jon-wood 12y ago
    I can't say for certain, but I'd think a lot of this is actually built on top of OpenLDAP, with Samba just providing the compatibility layer for Windows clients.
  - sseveran 12y ago
    I burned a couple of weeks trying to setup a replicated freeipa environment. I was amazed that I could start with a brand new instance, run the same script and end up with different problems every time.
  - bdunbar 12y ago
    > Also, how hard is it to set up/care/feed a basic directory service? Setting one up is pretty easy. The problem comes in when you find yourself depending on it, and then it gets out of whack, or Just Grows and you've got OUs and CNs all over the place. At my last employer - a mid-sized manufacturer - we had several Tier II apps. These must be in working order or production is shut down. The shop floor application. Core ERP. Email. Above II is I which are applications that must exist or the company cannot operate. There was only one Tier I application: Active Directory.

mcnully 12y ago

here is what it looks like: amazon.com

ldng 12y ago

Well, a lot of concept we expect from a computer OS apply to distributed system. AWS, in a few years, might end up to look like less a IaaS and more as a PaaS platform, a Linux distrib for cluster if you wish. That is you could treat AWS/any cloud as a distributed OS for clusters with VM/containers as processes/threads and services as packages. It's more or less already roughly the case. Well, IMHO, it's the maturation path for the cloud I can imagine.

justicezyx 12y ago

When I left Amazon, I thought Google has no trouble to easily beat Amazon with its strong tech stack. Gradually I learnt that companies are different. If one company does one thing good, that usually means another company cannot easily catch up, even with obvious advantages. Now I seriously doubt how long will it takes for Google to be a meaningful competitor to AWS...