Tom The Architect » amazon

Bye Bye local storage, Hello Amazon S3

Tom Carroll — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 03:30:06 +0000

I have been going through a great deal of change over the past 3 months. So while I am in flux I decided to minimize my use of local storage. I have started using Amazon S3 via Jungle Disk on my MacBook Pro. Storage in the cloud is very appealing to me, accessible from anywhere, anytime makes my life easier. Managing USB drives and DVDs is a pain in the neck.

I know that S3 is not perfect but it sure is nice so far. Jungle Disk appears as a mounted drive in Finder and I just drag the files into the drive. In the back ground Jungle disk uploads my files to S3 using my account. I have yet to do a back-up but that is on my list of things to do. The only think that does suck is the fact that my cable provider tightly limits upload bandwidth. So if you have a second try Amazon S3 and Jungle Disk.

Buy a book and some processor cycles

Tom Carroll — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 04:37:32 +0000

Amazon is now offering Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). This goes along with other service offerings. I really like the business strategy statement in the the Amazon 2005 annual report but the service part seems kinda just tacked on:

Our business strategy is to relentlessly focus on customer experience by offering our customers low prices,
convenience, and a wide selection of merchandise, to provide e-commerce solutions and services to other
businesses and to offer web services applications to developers.

(my emphasis)

They offer services but (via Amazon Web Services Licensing Agreement):

AMAZON WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES OF ANY KIND ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF, OR INABILITY TO USE, AMAZON WEB SERVICES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, PUNITIVE, CONSEQUENTIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION LOST DATA, BUSINESS OR ANTICIPATED PROFITS. CERTAIN JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW LIMITATIONS ON IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF CERTAIN DAMAGES, AND SO SOME OR ALL OF THE ABOVE DISCLAIMERS, EXCLUSIONS, OR LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

But don’t worry if you die or get personally injured:

THIS LIMITATION OF LIABILITY DOES NOT APPLY TO LIMIT AMAZON’S LIABILITY FOR DEATH OR PERSONAL INJURY TO THE EXTENT ONLY THAT IT ARISES AS A RESULT OF THE NEGLIGENCE OF AMAZON OR OF ITS EMPLOYEES, AGENTS OR AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVES.

Amazon continues to offer cool services to developers at affordable prices. So check out Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

Hints of Opportunity

Tom Carroll — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 04:46:54 +0000

Jon Udell writes in A new breed of highly-available serverless applications:

Amazon’s S3/SQS duo is a green field that invites entrepreneurs to think way outside the box.

I have already proposed prototypes that can take advantage of these services. Amazon will not be the only provider of distributed storage or messaging services (see cleversafe). These services plus the services from Google are just the beginning of a whole class of services that will drive innovation. Start-ups will be able to take advantage of the more efficient cost model and the increased flexibility. I also agree with Jon that SPDADE applications are going to become even more powerful as they integrate with services like S3 and SQS.

Check out Amazon’s S3 and SQS and let your mind run wild.

Link Summary:

Jon Udell’s RSS feed
A new breed of highly-available serverless applications

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)
Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS)