Amazon's popular cloud service, EC2, went down yesterday and only started showing signs of life in the evening. A number of popular websites were taken down, including Foursquare, Pinterest, and Airbnb. It's not the first time the service has gone down, most recently back in June. Here's a link to a New York Times article on the outage: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/amazon-cloud-service-goes-down-and-takes-some-popular-web-sites-with-it/ .
The latest failure underscores issues you should be aware of with cloud computing. Amazon's EC2 service offers attractively priced solutions, but if the service goes down, there's not much you can do until they bring it back up. You can't call Amazon to find out what's going on or get personal support. You just have to wait until service is restored.
Amazon isn't the only provider of cloud services, and some providers have better track records. Some also provide 800 numbers you can call when you need help (don't expect a quick answer in the event of a site-wide outage, though). And before you write of the idea of cloud computing entirely, consider the alternative. Suppose you host your website on your own servers. Is your internal network robust enough to prevent similar outages? If your server goes down it probably won't make the national news, but the impact on your business could be just as severe.
If you're not sure whether cloud computing is right for you, give TeamLogic IT a call at 707-293-9525. We can help you understand the alternatives and pick the best solution for your needs.
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