barcampLA 4: Amazon EC2 / S3
Guy from Elephant Disk is here, they're one of EC2+S3's biggest users. They only use it for non-real time stuff right now. He's terrified of stories about companies that use EC2 as their only web servers.
Issues
Companies built on EC2
Some companies have started to wrap services around AWS (e.g. RightScale) - check the partners page of AWS.
But: if you have something that parallelizes well, need scalability on demand, and can deal with the constraints, AWS is the shit. "AWS is the perfect startup environment; my credit card loves AWS."
Issues
- EC2 instances have no persistent storage - need to code your own persistence solution.
- No static IPs - need some sort of dynamic DNS client.
- What happens if Amazon pulls the plug or changes something crucial? No SLA.
- AWS is actually showing up in Amazon's financials. Helps assuage fears of it disappearing.
Companies built on EC2
- RenderRocket
- The AWS forums have lots of good examples and feedback
- Many more companies using just S3
Some companies have started to wrap services around AWS (e.g. RightScale) - check the partners page of AWS.
But: if you have something that parallelizes well, need scalability on demand, and can deal with the constraints, AWS is the shit. "AWS is the perfect startup environment; my credit card loves AWS."
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