71176
7
2
html
<p>The problems apparently started shortly after 6:30 pm PST and lasted for three hours. According to the AWS Service Health Dashboard <a href="http://status.aws.amazon.com/">at the time</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>A lightning storm caused damage to a
single Power Distribution Unit (PDU) in a single Availability Zone. While most
instances were unaffected, a set of racks does not currently have power, so the
instances on those racks are down. </em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Even though this only impacted one Availability Zone, a number of EC2 customers <a href="http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/thread.jspa?threadID=32879&start=15&tstart=0">seem</a> to have questions about the redundancy that EC2 is supposed to offer and I think the incident is a good reminder that <strong>cloud computing is not a replacement for best practices on the customer end.</strong></p>
<p>Far too many people seem to throw their applications into the cloud and expect them to fly come rain or shine. In reality, <strong>redundancy is not something that you can simply forget about just because you're hosting your applications in the cloud</strong>. Obviously how mission critical your applications are will determine what investments you make in setting up a redundant architecture but if you can't afford to risk the proverbial lightening strike, you had better think about redundancy on your own, cloud or no cloud.</p>
<p><em>Photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/elgarza/">El Garza</a> via Flickr.</em></p>
<p>The problems apparently started shortly after 6:30 pm PST and lasted for three hours. According to the AWS Service Health Dashboard <a href="http://status.aws.amazon.com/">at the time</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>A lightning storm caused damage to a
single Power Distribution Unit (PDU) in a single Availability Zone. While most
instances were unaffected, a set of racks does not currently have power, so the
instances on those racks are down. </em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Even though this only impacted one Availability Zone, a number of EC2 customers <a href="http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/thread.jspa?threadID=32879&start=15&tstart=0">seem</a> to have questions about the redundancy that EC2 is supposed to offer and I think the incident is a good reminder that <strong>cloud computing is not a replacement for best practices on the customer end.</strong></p>
<p>Far too many people seem to throw their applications into the cloud and expect them to fly come rain or shine. In reality, <strong>redundancy is not something that you can simply forget about just because you're hosting your applications in the cloud</strong>. Obviously how mission critical your applications are will determine what investments you make in setting up a redundant architecture but if you can't afford to risk the proverbial lightening strike, you had better think about redundancy on your own, cloud or no cloud.</p>
<p><em>Photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/elgarza/">El Garza</a> via Flickr.</em></p>
2009-06-11T16:10:10+01:00
5
1
html
<p><strong><img alt="" height="100" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2114/2176941958_7e8efb2ef4_t.jpg" style="margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px; float: left;" width="72" />Cloud computing is growing in popularity and many businesses, both large and small, are turning to the cloud to host critical applications.</strong></p>
<p>Amazon's EC2 is one of the most popular offerings but all it took was a single lightening strike to take part of the EC2 cloud down last night.</p>
<p><strong><img style="margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px; float: left;" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2114/2176941958_7e8efb2ef4_t.jpg" alt="" width="72" height="100" />Cloud computing is growing in popularity and many businesses, both large and small, are turning to the cloud to host critical applications.</strong></p>
<p>Amazon's EC2 is one of the most popular offerings but all it took was a single lightening strike to take part of the EC2 cloud down last night.</p>
false
4013
<p>Related Econsultancy reports include our <strong><a href="http://econsultancy.com/reports/e-commerce-platforms-buyer-s-guide-2009">E-commerce Platforms Buyer's Guide</a></strong>, <strong><a href="http://econsultancy.com/reports/delivering-successful-e-commerce-projects">Delivering Successful E-commerce Projects</a></strong> and <strong><a href="http://econsultancy.com/reports/online-retail-2007-checkout-special">Online Retail Checkout Special</a></strong>. See also the <strong><a href="http://econsultancy.com/reports/e-commerce-statistics">E-commerce Statistics Compendium</a></strong>.</p>
<p>Related Econsultancy reports include our <strong><a href="http://econsultancy.com/reports/e-commerce-platforms-buyer-s-guide-2009">E-commerce Platforms Buyer's Guide</a></strong>, <strong><a href="http://econsultancy.com/reports/delivering-successful-e-commerce-projects">Delivering Successful E-commerce Projects</a></strong> and <strong><a href="http://econsultancy.com/reports/online-retail-2007-checkout-special">Online Retail Checkout Special</a></strong>. See also the <strong><a href="http://econsultancy.com/reports/e-commerce-statistics">E-commerce Statistics Compendium</a></strong>.</p>
Lightning strikes Amazon's EC2
false
2009-06-11T18:24:00+01:00
lightning-strikes-amazons-ec2
2009-10-13T10:19:10+01:00
2040