S3 and EC2 solved real problems and integrated nic...

2007-12-17T09:59:00.000-08:00

S3 and EC2 solved real problems and integrated nicely with existing systems.

Where is the pain SimpleDB will alleviate? I don't think there are nearly enough developers saying "I have hit a scaling barrier using MySQL and memcached and need something much faster, even if it means rewriting -- and changing certain fundamental assumptions about the functionality of -- my model layer."

EC2 provided a type of scaling that perhaps the top 1 percent (or less) of websites need, and it's still a very real market. SimpleDB is one possible solution for perhaps the top one percent of *that* market. Small group. And unlike S3 and EC2, it's a solution that requires people to bake a new standard deep inside their apps.

Perhaps I'll post more about this at a later time, for now you can take or leave my off the cuff opinion, and feel free to leave it ;->

Ryan, I feel you're not being clear what exactly y...

2007-12-17T00:16:00.000-08:00

Ryan, I feel you're not being clear what exactly your objection is to Amazon's service. Saying that they're throwing out DBMS experience doesn't cut it.

It's well known that DBMSes don't scale in the large while preserving all the ACID of a DBMS - something's got to give. You just can't get atomicity, consistency and distribution (redundancy, i.e. making it highly available) simultaneously. It's like a law of physics. Amazon is releasing an API to their take on what's required, and they have more experience than almost anyone in this field.

A lot of good technical info here:

http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2007/10/amazons_dynamo.html

Comments on Ryan Tate - The Hack: Babes in userland

S3 and EC2 solved real problems and integrated nic...

Ryan, I feel you're not being clear what exactly y...