Why is this on HN? AWS provides a great way to back up EBS volumes called snapshots. Snapshots only store the deltas from the previous snapshot, and all the work to create one is done by AWS, not the server it is attached to.
This guy didn't read the docs and did not use AWS snapshots. It was the equivalent of not having a backup strategy for your local hard drive.
I agree--this is just noise. The comment in the parent post saying "I run datacenters, and things don't fail" should be crossposted to thedailywtf. EVERYTHING fails. Plan for it.
At first I thought the same thing. But I think this is a useful discussion to have on HN, since not everyone here understands probabilities or the realities of 'cloud' services.
Maybe by having this the top rated story for a bit it will make someone think twice about their virtual infrastructure and examine their assumptions for errors. Do it for the data ;)
I submitted it because stories like this are common, but the underlying issues and misunderstandings aren't often aired out as they have been nicely here. Lots of people don't understand what they are and are not getting with "cloud" providers, nevermind grokking specifics like MTBF stats (and similar).
This guy didn't read the docs and did not use AWS snapshots. It was the equivalent of not having a backup strategy for your local hard drive.