Microsoft and Amazon Cloud Services Struck by Lightning

[cryptz]

they are giving customers the option of a snapshot, so its hard to say they have bad backup solutions, for all we know the snapshots are only a minute out. They are simply saying your current image may be corrupt. the only way you can fault them is that they didnt shut down the vms gracefully. given that it was a lightning strike they may not have been able to (they may have lost physical servers during the strike). Also, its probably not part of their protocol to shut down everything like that, they probably could have responded to a power outtage much more gracefully then a lightning strike, theres a big difference. most of the direct lightning strikes i have seem resulted and electric panels being toasted, many of them having the backup generators tied into.

 

[gokanis]

God looked down from heaven on Microsoft, to see if there were any that did understand, that did not seeketh the evil cloud. *Zaaaaaapppppppppp*

Modified Psalm 53:2.....

 

[Camikazi]

Damn even nature doesn't like the Cloud.

 

[Guest]

I think this is a good indication that God is saying NO to "the cloud."

 

[ProDigit10]

byebye cloud! Struck by lightning!

Yet another reason to get rid of ridiculous government overseeing initiatives that take the privacy of normal users away!

 

[ngoy]

I work at a very large datacenter. We have dual path power to every single rack. Each path is run by a separate UPS. Those UPS's are on separate PDU's are hooked up to separate diesel generators. Those diesel generators are hooked to a 1MW gas turbine powerplant, which is then supplemented by street power.

Looks like they are missing key pieces of a redundant power system, or they are fail at using decent circuit breakers.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

I understand the concept of storing data at a remote location. As a professional photographer I used to burn two hard copies of raw and finished photos. One copy was stored in a fire resistant cabinet in my office. The second copy was stored at an off site location. I went to that extreme because the finished photos generated revenue. I can't explain why but I am having a difficult time thinking cloud storage is just as secure.

I just had an odd thought pop into my head. How is the cloud concept different from web hosting? Don't both store data at a server farm? Also, would it be considered a form of outsourcing?

 

[legacy7955]

The arrogance of the FAKE CLOUD has been put in its place by God.

One more reason why I too will never allow my critical personal data to be stored on this imperfect cloud.

DEATH TO THE CLOUD!

 

[Guest]

I am a Sr Sys Admin at a hospital. We have Power coming in from 2 different Utility providers on 2 different poles. We have UPS's feeding each rack with 2 PDUs per rack with 2 or more redundant PSUs in each server going to each PDU. We also have a backup generator for BOTH our Primary and Backup DataCenters.

I think Amazon makes enough profit to ensure redundancy

 

[NapoleonDK]

[citation][nom]ngoy[/nom]I work at a very large datacenter. We have dual path power to every single rack...[/citation]I'm also employed in a data center environment with multiple data halls at different tier levels. 2 halls share dual power paths, one to shared UPS and one to grid electricity, while a third hall uses dual power paths to twin UPS's. All UPS's are backed up with a 1.8MW CAT 3516B generator.

...and all we do is write software. I'd imagine cloud services should be more reliable than that...

 

[f-14]

clouds have lightning... they also have rain, they also are part of tornadoes and hurricanes.
thinking of cloud? beware storms are brewing!

 

[f-14]

[citation][nom]NapoleonDK[/nom]I'm also employed in a data center environment with multiple data halls at different tier levels. 2 halls share dual power paths, one to shared UPS and one to grid electricity, while a third hall uses dual power paths to twin UPS's. All UPS's are backed up with a 1.8MW CAT 3516B generator....and all we do is write software. I'd imagine cloud services should be more reliable than that...[/citation]
ya look how well that worked at fukishima nuclear plant.
i'm going to laugh when lightning strikes your generators due to their magnetical field attracting it or the rain that ensues after causes a massive flood. or mudslide/sink hole.
disaster always strikes, it's just a matter of WHEN!

 

[NapoleonDK]

[citation][nom]f-14[/nom]ya look how well that worked at fukishima nuclear plant.......it's just a matter of WHEN![/citation]True. After 20+ years in operation, most of the failures here have been from some dipwad tech crossing the wires to the EPO button, or server guys plugging both power supplies into the same PDU... There is no accounting for human error, and there is certainly no accounting for the forces of nature. I would really like to know what kind of infrastructure was in place at Amazon's Dublin plant!

 

[extremepcs]

Should have went with iCloud. Apple is immune to lightning as well as malware. LOL

 

[Guest]

Geez, guys, settle. Yeah, this is an example of a weakness of cloud storage. Guarantee if it was your locally stored stuff that got hit by lightning, the same thing would have happened. Cloud services aren't inherantly stupid. They can be damn useful (I use Skydrive regularly). The trick is to be a smart user and not rely on them as the ONLY source of your files. It sucks that this happened, but lets not blame Amazon/MS too harshly. You can only do so much to protect your equipment from an act of god. I doubt many server farms plan for a direct lightning strike, as the odds of it happening vs. the cost of said protection probably doesn't pan out favorably.

 

[K-zon]

Coonect of one connect to another to say.

Lighting probably is one "variable" too many or just too many. And probably way more powerful.

One cloud to another to say. Also given that probably, the "service" Cloud probably doesn't fair well with lighlting , also probably don't have its own to say either.

 

[K-zon]

Connect*

 

[ice_mountain_]

please everyone read the article more closely:

the description states only that EC2 and the related EBS was affected. EC2 is amazon's cloud computing solution, while EBS is used as temporary storage for running EC2 instances; they are not data stores.

users should not be storing crucial data on EBS for extended periods of time. data meant for long term persistence should be moved as soon as possible onto dedicated storage solutions, such as amazon S3.

once your data is on S3 (which according to amazon has 11 9's durability, i.e. one in a billion failure rate) the risk of losing it is far lower than that of any storage solution you can implement yourself.

the reality is that the durability, reliability and security of cloud solutions are far greater than that of personal computing devices. the risk lies in the single point of failure - should there be a break-in or catastrophic failure, the amount of damage will be much higher simply because there is a lot of data in one place. it is somewhat like a passenger jet - far safer and reliable than a car, but when a jet crashes, hundreds of people die, whereas if a car crashed, only a few do.

 

[uruquiora]

[citation][nom]rabidface[/nom]And this is why I will NEVER use cloud services. Only way I would use cloud services is if I had it backed up on my own hard drives, but then why use a cloud service? Why not just set your home computer up as an FTP server and access your data from your home computer from where ever you are? But yes, cloud services are more targeted at people who love the convenience of having their data in an easy to reach place that is secure (as secure as the servers themselves) and are probably not extremely tech savvy (but not necessarily).I do see some value in cloud computing/storage, but not much. There are people out there that probably use these services as their only storage, and I feel extremely sorry for those people.[/citation]


that's a narrow view of the cloud i am afraid... although i do see the potential issues with a problem like that, cloud services also allow thousands of companies to set up a business and have access to applications when they would never have been able to afford it in the past... i can tell you the cloud is not dying tomorrow for sure...