[LINK] itNews: ' Amazon's botched backup causes cloud chaos'

Marghanita da Cruz marghanita at ramin.com.au
Thu Aug 18 10:45:06 AEST 2011


Roger Clarke wrote:
> You have to laugh, or you'd cry.
> 
> The whole point of cloud computing was supposed to be "Rapid 
> elasticity (i.e. resources are scalable according to demand)".
> 

Cloud Computing is more a case of economics of scale rather than
scalability to infinity and beyond. Though ofcourse with mega-sites amazon,
google, ebay, yahoo, alibaba etc they are facing their own challenges which
will translate to the cloud for lesser mortals and governments.

> But Amazon's explanation for their disaster was:
> "We ran out of spare capacity before all of the volumes were able to 
> successfully re-mirror," Amazon explained.
> 
> The schemozzle began when the power failed.
> 
> Amazon's backup generators failed to kick in.
> 

so what's new? How many times have you been into a bank - when the teller
explains the computers are playing up.

> My interpretation of the fuzzy information provided is that foolishly 
> designed (and obviously untested) database replication routines went 
> mad trying to perform backups and recoveries at the same time, in all 
> directions at once.
> 

I think that is called panic....

> That resulted in overload, and chaos.
> 
> [Some] customers were forced to wait up to three days for Amazon to 
> retrieve a snapshot [i.e. complete the recovery?]
> 

Ofcourse, like the banks, who is out of pocket due to these failures?
I am always amused by the apologies offered by executives - it would be 
good if we could get to a stage with consumer law, where these failures can 
be costed and paid out - IT would get a much better reputation in the process.

But the IT disasters aren't quite as bad as the Oil Spills or Nuclear 
failures...and then there is the Coal Seam Gas ground water contamination.
> Monday 15 August, 2011 
> Disability, Fracking and Riots

> MALCOLM TURNBULL: Tony, this is an issue that is more serious than that flip remark would suggest. We are talking about our most precious resource is our water. We are the driest continent on earth. Now, I can tell you this, if you damage your groundwater sources, if you contaminate aquifers, whether it's by chemicals or whether it's by allowing contaminated water from a coal seam to get into a fresh water aquifer, you cannot fix it. You can't rehabilitate it. You can dig a hole in the ground and fill it in and put the topsoil back and over time perhaps you will get back to something like you had to begin with. But if you muck up the groundwater, you've got a long term problem and that is why the critical element that has been missing is the scientific work, the groundwater science, the hydrology. That is what needs to be done. We know very little about our groundwater in Australia and we need to know more.
<snip>
> TONY BURKE: Well, the advice that I had from Geoscience Australia on exactly the questions that Malcolm has raised - and I think they're the right questions, I do - is that some coal seams will be watertight. Some of them will be connected through the - be it the Great Artesian Basin or whatever the groundwater is. If they're watertight, you have a very different situation because what's in there stays there. If you have them where they're porous and you've got connectivity through to your groundwater, then you have to have, in those circumstances, a very high level of precaution and you need to treat them differently.
<http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3291166.htm>

> 
> Amazon's botched backup causes cloud chaos
> Liam Tung
> itNews
> Aug 17, 2011 6:37 AM (1 hour ago)
> http://www.itnews.com.au/News/267086,amazons-botched-backup-causes-cloud-chaos.aspx?eid=1&edate=20110817&utm_source=20110817_AM&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=daily_newsletter
> 
> 


-- 
Marghanita da Cruz
http://ramin.com.au
Tel: 0414-869202






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