AWS Glacier: Understanding Where Your Cold Cash Goes for Cloudy Storage
April 17, 2020
If you are into AWS, you may be interested in this quite interesting write up about the AWS allegedly lower-cost storage option. “How tricky is to save 20x with AWS Glaciers?” explains what some individuals have learned via trial and error.
The write up states that Amazon offers three kinds of Glacier services:
S3 object storage class “Glacier” (accessible via S3 API)
S3 object storage class “Glacier Deep Archive” (accessible via S3 API)
S3 Glacier Service (accessible via Glacier API)
The names, according to the source, are somewhat confusing. An alternative naming convention might be:
S3 Glacier
S3 Deep Glacier
Glacier Service
Okay, is that helpful?
The key point in the write up is that each type of services has its own conventions and pricing. The write up provides these suggestions for optimal use of Glacier’s variants:
- Backups
- Logs
- Lossless versions of media files for (possible) future usage
- Replacement of in-house magnetic tape archiving.
Amazon is working overtime to provide options. Presumably those who attend one or more of the training classes Amazon offers will understand the nuances.
DarkCyber thinks that Amazon has modified some of the telecommunications pricing tables popular among the Baby Bells when online was becoming a thing; namely, a question worthy of a Google engineer interview. Oh, wait. Google prices more transparently, right?
Stephen E Arnold, April 17, 2020
Amazonia for April 16, 2020
April 16, 2020
A brief edition of our Amazonia today. (Amazonia was our test of a run down of Amazon-related news.) The feature has returned in an abbreviated format today.
First, “Amazon Fires at Least 3 Employees Who Criticized Workplace Conditions” makes it clear that one should not criticize the Bezos bulldozer. DarkCyber noted this statement in the source article:
An Amazon representative told the Post the employees were fired for “repeatedly violating internal policies,” saying, “We support every employee’s right to criticize their employer’s working conditions, but that does not come with blanket immunity against any and all internal policies.”
Sounds ideal.
Second, “An Amazon Warehouse Worker Has Died of Coronavirus.” The story notes:
The company alleges the employee contracted the disease while on vacation and had not been in contact with other DLA8 workers since March 6. Amazon told Gizmodo in an email that the company notified all DLA8 employees on March 31.
It is trivial for Amazon to know where an employee was exposed to a virus. Amazing ability has Amazon.
Finally “Amazon Is Slashing Commission Rates for Its Affiliate Program” makes clear that the online bookstore is rejiggling its payout deals. The article asserts:
The changes are quite significant in some cases: The furniture and home improvement category’s affiliate cut fell from 8 percent to 3 percent, for instance, while grocery items’ commission rate is now down to 1 percent from 5 percent. As you can tell, it could have a huge impact on websites, including media outlets, that rely heavily on Amazon’s affiliate program to make money.
Sure, DarkCyber can tell.
Stephen E Arnold, April 16, 2020
The Heritage of Jeff Bezos: An Assertion from an Outfit Called Really Grateful
April 13, 2020
DarkCyber knows zero about an outfit called From the Trenches. If you navigate to “Who Was Jeff Bezos before Amazon?”, you can view a somewhat peculiar approach to questioning an accomplished business professional. True, the video includes a statement which did not mesh smoothly with DarkCyber’s understanding; specifically, the narrator of the video says:
Darpa is the basis of the modern Internet.
Well, sort of.
But the most interesting allegedly true factoid in the video is:
Mr. Bezos’ “real father was a circus performer.”
Maybe that’s the key to success? Real news or fake? Amusing either way.
Stephen E Arnold, April 13, 2020
Amazon: More Than Warehouse Staff Hired?
April 10, 2020
Google and Microsoft are taking away some of Amazon’s growing technological power. Jeff Bezos is not happy that, so AWS is hiring more people. What is the logic behind that? The Register explains why in the article, “AWS To Double Sales Droids As. Google, Microsoft’s Growing Clouds Threaten To Gobble Larger Slices of Bezos’ Pie.”
Due to the growing amount of sales Google and Microsoft are making in their cloud departments, AWS is hiring more sales people. AWS hopes that by increasing their sales staff they will make more sales and steal customers away from its rivals. These will not be regular sales people, though. AWS is hiring experts in security, AI, and data analytics. AWS will not reveal the size of its sales team or the exact number of people its hiring. Supposedly there are thousands on the team.
AWS currently dominants the cloud computing market at 32.3%. Microsoft has 16.9% and Google has 5.8% of the market. Will that growth last in 2020?
“But the Jeff-Bezos-run titan’s enormous growth has begun to slow recently as other providers catch up. Of the big four cloud providers, Google grew the most last year, swelling 87.8 per cent, Microsoft came in second, with 64 per cent growth. Alibaba was close behind with 63.8 per cent. But AWS’s growth, at 36 per cent, was half that of its nearest rival. AWS still posted the biggest revenue increase in absolute terms – with $9.2bn compared with Microsoft’s $7.1bn – but many saw the pair’s recent financial results as an early sign that rival services were beginning to catch up with Bezos’ behemoth.”
Google also plans to triple its size team, while Microsoft is trying to poach AWS’s cloud clients. So far Microsoft has been successful. The best example is that Microsoft won the Department of Defense’s $10 billion decade-long JEDI IT supply deal. AWS did not like that business decision, so AWS appealed and the courts will decide if the contract was fairly awarded.
The new hiring is the biggest business move from AWS in years. AWS wants to focus less on its basic services that assists organizations in developing products to actually building the finished product themselves and selling them. The battle is on for the cloud market, but it looks like thugs are going to go the Google way. Google controls most of western searches and AWS will control most cloud computing systems.
Whitney Grace, April 10, 2020
Google Stadia: Amazon Jungle Sounds Startling Googzilla Maybe?
April 9, 2020
I used to live in Campinas, Brazil. Not the jungle exactly, but in the 1950s there were some interesting critters roaming around. At night, if you were lucky, we could hear snuffing at door jams. Yep, big cats, and not the Instagram type either.
Amazon announced in the way of the Bezos bulldozer that it would be getting into the online game business. You can read about that move in “Amazon Pushes into Making Video Games, Not Just Streaming Their Play.”
That bulldozer gear shift may have frightened some Googlers. A lot. DarkCyber noted “Google Stadia Now Free to Anyone with a Gmail Address.” The write up stated:
Google’s video game streaming platform, Stadia, is now free to anyone with a Gmail address, the company announced on Wednesday. To sweeten the deal, Google is also giving new users two months of Stadia Pro — including access to nine games — for free. Existing Stadia Pro subscribers won’t be charged for the next two months of the service, Google said. Previously, access to Stadia required purchasing the $129 Google Stadia Premiere Edition, a bundle that includes a Chromecast Ultra, a wireless Stadia Controller, and three months of Stadia Pro, the service that offered free games and video streams up to 4K resolution and 60 frames per second with HDR lighting.
If free doesn’t work, what’s next? A Microsoft Bing play like paying people to use a Web search service which is not particularly robust. Perhaps Google will offer coupons or run discounts on weekends like Harbor Freight. Green Stamps were popular with my mother in the late 1940s. Maybe Google could try that as a way to generate some excitement?
How long will the Googlers working on games stick to the project? Google initiatives die when the wizards realize they might miss a bonus or be left out of a really hot project that will ignite their career.
Will online games become another Dodgeball? Wait, I hear the Bezos bulldozer. Even I am frightened of the sound of crushing hopes, dreams, and shopping options. Yikes. How fast can Googzilla run?
Stephen E Arnold, April 9, 2020
AWS Data Marketplace Trundles Along
April 6, 2020
Interesting story appeared in Channel Life. “AWS Marketplace & Data Exchange Open to A/NZ Channel Partners” reports that “global customers are able to purchase directly from A/NZ providers through the two AWS platforms.”
DarkCyber noted this statement in the write up:
“The development and adoption of Insurtech into insurance businesses places a greater focus on customer centricity, real time reporting and improved business efficiencies,” comments JAVLN chief executive officer Dale Smith. “Through AWS Marketplace and with the support of members of the AWS Partner Network, customers will now have access to JAVLN’s insurance software platform and services internationally.”
Data and services are available. “Data” is more interesting than services along in DarkCyber’s view.
Why will companies and Australian government agencies gravitate to AWS? Probably the same reason Middle Eastern countries are using the platform framework:
Farrago AI founder and CEO Asa Cox says AWS Marketplace is a key part of the company’s regional reach for predictive analytics and machine learning products. “The ease of purchase, integration, and consumption makes the AWS Marketplace a no-brainer for existing customers to find new value added products from the partner community.”
Interesting.
Stephen E Arnold, April 6, 2020
Amazon AWS Challenge to Microsoft JEDI Win Reported
March 27, 2020
If you follow the grudge match between Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure, you may be interested in “AWS Charges Pentagon Wants to Give Microsoft a Do-Over on Contested JEDI Bid.” The article states:
In a court filing made public today, Amazon Web Services Inc. is charging that the Pentagon is unfairly favoring rival Microsoft Corp. as part of its reevaluation of the JEDI contract.
The today is March 24, 2020.
The article quotes the document as saying:
“Offerors would be able to change only the services they proposed for Price Scenario 6, and would not be allowed to adjust the unit prices and discounts for those services.
Discriminatory? Maybe.
The article also quotes the document as saying:
“DoD provides no meaningful commitment to evaluate the other serious errors identified by AWS’s protest,” the company wrote. “Even if taken at face value, DoD’s proposed corrective action fails to address in any meaningful way how it would resolve the technical issues AWS has raised, or which specific technical challenges it intends to address.”
Stay tuned.
Stephen E Arnold, March 26, 2020
Mr. Bezos, A 21st Century News Outfit Wants You to Do a Daily Briefing, Just Like a Government Leader
March 24, 2020
I read “It’s Time for a Regular Amazon Daily Coronavirus Briefing.” The title alone is remarkable for two reasons: [a] Amazon is a company talk outputs enormous amounts of information in its blogs, on its Web site, and in its public statements and [b] news organizations are supposed to go and find information, not demand that companies give daily briefings.
What the article demonstrates is that reporting is supposed to be like the second grade. Students show up. A teacher outputs. The student listens, practices, or whatever.
The subtitle to the write up (I am not sure what to call it) asserts:
The company’s distribution network is understandably struggling — and it’s time that Amazon started answering questions about it
It is good to know that a 21st century news outfit can take a parental approach: “Understandably struggling.” Yeah, news flash. Many companies are struggling because employees are falling ill and certain attendant disruptions are amplifying. But “understandably.”
The subtitle also demands, like an old fashioned grade school teacher; for example, “It’s time that Stevie Arnold stops daydreaming in class.” How did that work out? I still daydream, and I am not sure external inputs are going to change me. I had to inform one millennial via a LinkedIn message that I was not looking for a consultant to improve my marketing of my blog. I explained, “Not a chance, gentle millennial.”
What’s the write up “reporting”? Here’s an example:
The company has temporarily stopped taking orders for non-essential items that are shipped through its fulfillment service while it focuses on getting more important items to customers.
The company also suspended Prime Pantry, a service for getting rapid delivery of discounted grocery and household items, amid a surge in demand. And — at the request of local governments — it downgraded the quality of streaming on Prime Video in Europe in an effort to reduce the strain on the internet.
Yep, slower deliveries and downgraded video. News flash: There is a virus problem. That virus is disrupting many things. Next day delivery. Does it matter? Video quality. Why not read a book?
Here’s what the DarkCyber team has noticed about Amazon’s current situation:
- Amazon is undergoing forced change. Change is hard, and in the midst of change, there’s confusion and those on duty may find it difficult to do mission critical things at all.
- Daily briefings are what governments do. Where’s the daily briefing from the hospital supply company in Nashville? No one cares about a daily briefing even from giant companies. Daily briefings, in case the 21st century news outfits have not noticed, are theater.
- Amazon appears to have failed in three critical business functions: Securing its supply chains, maintaining existing services to customers who pay for these services, and managing employees in a way that keeps employees chipper.
My thoughts are:
- Find people who have first hand information about Amazon and talk to these people. This is research; it is difficult and time consuming. But the point is the news has to be found, not delivered like cookies and milk in grade school.
- Adopt an informed approach to assembling verifiable facts. Skip the woulda, shoulda, coulda approach to a write up. The fact is the write up itself reveals that some people are inconvenienced because Amazon cannot deliver something quickly. Wow. One has to exert effort and manage time without Amazon’s “mom” services.
- Provide useful information. That means answering questions like, “What can an Amazon customer do when an order does not arrive?”, “What are the options for obtaining video entertainment?”, “How does one apply for a job at Amazon?” Answers, not complaints, might be helpful, might they not?
Net net: Companies are not eager to be told what to do by people who know zero about a business at a point in time. It is time for “real news” professionals to do old fashioned research, analysis, and reporting in DarkCyber’s opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, March 24, 2020
NASA: Bad Math for Data Return
March 23, 2020
DarkCyber continues to monitor the Amazon Web Services drive train for the Bezos bulldozer. “NASA to Launch 247 Petabytes of Data into AWS – But Forgot about Eye-watering Cloudy Egress Costs before Lift-Off” reports that it is easy to get into the AWS orbit but the payload return may incur some interesting costs.
The Register article states:
“Specifically, the agency faces the possibility of substantial cost increases for data egress from the cloud,” the Inspector General’s Office wrote, explaining that today NASA doesn’t incur extra costs when users access data from its DAACs. “However, when end users download data from Earth data Cloud, the agency, not the user, will be charged every time data is egressed. “That means EDSIS wearing cloud egress costs. Ultimately, ESDIS will be responsible for both cloud costs, including egress charges, and the costs to operate the 12 DAACS.”
Simplifying: Easy in, expensive out.
The Register did some math, which apparently is unfamiliar to certain NASA professionals and consultants. The Register reports:
The Register used Amazon’s cloudy cost calculator to tot up the cost of storing 247PB in the cloud giant’s S3 service. The promised pay-as-you-go price for us on the street was a staggering $5,439,526.92 per month, not taking into account the free tier discount of 12 cents. The audit, meanwhile, suggests an increased cloud spend of around $30m a year by 2025, on top of NASA’s $65m-per-year deal with AWS. The existence of data egress costs are not obscure nor arcane knowledge. Which left The Register wondering how an agency capable of sending stuff into orbit or making marvelously long-lived Mars rovers could also make such a dumb mistake.
Net net: The Bezos bulldozer grinds forward with some clever cost wiring; that is, a 21st century variant of the IBM lock in strategy.
Stephen E Arnold, March 23, 2020
Open Source Weaponized: Can Amazon Dent the Future of Target and Walmart?
March 16, 2020
“Amazon Courts Walmart, Target to Join Cashierless Tech Group” is interesting but cut loose from the type of footnotes, named sources, and back up data some find helpful. Plus the WSJ states: “Retailers don’t yet plan to participate, but talks highlight Amazon’s ambition to have others adopt its technology.” If accurate, this is a page from the Amazon policeware / blockchain playbook. (For a free summary of DarkCyber’s Amazon policeware report, fill in the request form at this link.)
Retailers don’t yet plan to participate, but talks highlight Amazon’s ambition to have others adopt its technology
Amazon’s online bookstore bulldozer is revving through supply chain and demand mud. Despite the overheating of the big diesel engine, the S-Team is not resting on its laurels.
According to the Murdoch-inspired newspaper, “sources” have revealed “Amazon is making some of the software that underpins its Go stores available through an organization called Dent.” The idea seems to be that some of the technology would be open source.
DarkCyber finds the sourceless news interesting. Let’s assume that the write up is 100 percent accurate. Why give away a technology that could make Amazon’s AWS system some money? How open source is the Bezos bulldozer? What bits and pieces of digital connective tissue will be needed to make the open source technology work?
There are no answers to these questions. DarkCyber has formulated some other questions, and these also cannot be answered in a definitive way. Let’s look at these:
- Is Amazon use of open source a weaponization of the core ideas of open source software?
- How will the open source community respond to Amazon’s alleged embrace of open source?
- What type of pressure will Amazon’s open source play, if it indeed an accurate characterization of the WSJ sources’ factoids is accurate, put on its competitors?
- What does Amazon gain by making Target and Walmart look like outfits who don’t want to ride the Bezos bulldozer?
Net net: If the WSJ story is accurate, DarkCyber will have to reassess Amazon’s willingness to use certain types of digital data as a weapon. Like many weapons, caution is usually prudent. Mishandling can make downstream events in a chain quite interesting. Just Walk Out may garner a new connotation.
Stephen E Arnold, March 16, 2020
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