# Amazon Web Services takes down huge swathes of the internet, but not SDMB **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 7, 2021, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-web-services-takes-down-huge-swathes-of-the-internet-but-not-sdmb/955667 "2021-12-07T22:05:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2021, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-web-services-takes-down-huge-swathes-of-the-internet-but-not-sdmb/955667/21 "2021-12-08T03:45:54Z")
…and then wish they’d read the thread about how scammers sucker them. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2021, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-web-services-takes-down-huge-swathes-of-the-internet-but-not-sdmb/955667/22 "2021-12-08T05:28:37Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Like everything, some older people (people who remember things like paper books and incredibly dangerous cars that a _person_ drives) won’t like this, and will resist it. At this point, every reader of this thread should stop and read (or re-read) Ray Bradbury’s dystopian futuristic short story _The Pedestrian_ (four pages). Full text here (PDF): [http://www.achsblueenglish.weebly.com/uploads/7/6/7/3/7673592/the\_pedestrian.pdf](http://www.achsblueenglish.weebly.com/uploads/7/6/7/3/7673592/the_pedestrian.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2021, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-web-services-takes-down-huge-swathes-of-the-internet-but-not-sdmb/955667/23 "2021-12-08T05:40:49Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Can you remember something like this happening with AWS before? > **[Timeline of Amazon Web Services | Amazon Web Services outages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Amazon_Web_Services#Amazon_Web_Services_outages)** > > 1.List of Amazon products and services | > 2.History of Amazon ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2021, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-web-services-takes-down-huge-swathes-of-the-internet-but-not-sdmb/955667/24 "2021-12-08T05:41:15Z")
> [@TheGunIsMightierThanThePen](#): > > Since the SDMB wasn’t affected, I presume the particular Discourse instance that powers the SDMB isn’t hosted on AWS. I’m pretty sure it’s hosted on AWS, but probably not on the East Coast region that was down. I would guess that Discourse client hosting is on the West Coast. AWS’s main data centers in North America are in Virginia (US-East-1 that was down), Ohio, California and Oregon. There are also a couple of dozen other locations worldwide. ---
**Author:** ![TheGunIsMightierThanThePen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thegunismightierthanthepen/32/2981_2.png) [@TheGunIsMightierThanThePen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheGunIsMightierThanThePen)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2021, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-web-services-takes-down-huge-swathes-of-the-internet-but-not-sdmb/955667/25 "2021-12-08T06:55:24Z")
When I run `ping boards.straightdope.com` from a terminal, I get the IP address 64.71.144.202, which resolves to an ISP called Hurricane Electric, with the server located somewhere in the Los Angeles area. If true, that would explain why the forums weren’t affected by the AWS outage, because they don’t use AWS. But still … Hurricane Electric is a very odd choice for hosting a site of moderate activity like the SDMB. Certainly not within the first 10, or even 20, web hosts that come to my mind. Another possibility is that the SDMB has multiple mirrors and I happen to be redirected to the one closest to me (I’m in California). But would the parent company really be funding all those sites, for a board of relative unimportance? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2021, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-web-services-takes-down-huge-swathes-of-the-internet-but-not-sdmb/955667/26 "2021-12-08T07:25:02Z")
I get the same IP address. It looks like I was wrong about Discourse being hosted on AWS. Looking up Hurricane Electric, it seems that they offer wholesale private data centers. So it may be that Discourse runs its hosting from a private data center under the umbrella of Hurricane Electric. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2021, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-web-services-takes-down-huge-swathes-of-the-internet-but-not-sdmb/955667/27 "2021-12-08T14:41:12Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Ray Bradbury’s dystopian futuristic short story _The Pedestrian_ (four pages) He may be a good predictor for some things, but he has his people watching WESTERNS. HA! ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2021, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-web-services-takes-down-huge-swathes-of-the-internet-but-not-sdmb/955667/28 "2021-12-08T15:14:40Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > The Cloud will ultimately be a vast almost continuous network of linked and shared computational resources, not just a few big buildings full of servers. B-b-b-but you mean it’s not really in a _cloud_? [![](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/aa/96/97/aa9697a3f7a61389675b8dc109518753.gif) ](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/aa/96/97/aa9697a3f7a61389675b8dc109518753.gif) \<_ThelmaLou looks skyward, immensely disappointed…_\> ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2021, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-web-services-takes-down-huge-swathes-of-the-internet-but-not-sdmb/955667/29 "2021-12-08T15:57:48Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > B-b-b-but you mean it’s not really in a _cloud_ ? It’s ok, we can still [yell at it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ-LivK4-78). ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2021, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-web-services-takes-down-huge-swathes-of-the-internet-but-not-sdmb/955667/30 "2021-12-08T16:04:45Z")
> I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now > From up and down and still somehow > It’s cloud illusions I recall > I really don’t know clouds at all H/T to Joni Mitchell ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-web-services-takes-down-huge-swathes-of-the-internet-but-not-sdmb/955667/31 "2021-12-14T18:11:05Z")
I’m so old I can remember when the prime feature of the internet was fault tolerance. Since then, we’ve let the infrastructure be increasingly centralized into a handful of companies. That was a big mistake. We need more open protocols, more peer-to-peer communication, and fewer middlemen. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-web-services-takes-down-huge-swathes-of-the-internet-but-not-sdmb/955667/32 "2021-12-14T18:13:52Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > We need more open protocols, more peer-to-peer communication, and fewer middlemen. What do these have to do with an AWS outage? ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-web-services-takes-down-huge-swathes-of-the-internet-but-not-sdmb/955667/33 "2021-12-14T18:17:01Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > What do these have to do with an AWS outage? What do you think AWS is? It’s centralized infrastructure. Every company that uses it is dependent on Amazon to maintain it and keep it running. There is a push to move a lot of factory automation to the ‘cloud’. Which is either AWS, or Azure, or Google. Won’t it be fun when an AWS or Azure or Google outage shuts down hundreds of factories across the country? ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-web-services-takes-down-huge-swathes-of-the-internet-but-not-sdmb/955667/34 "2021-12-14T18:19:07Z")
The centralized part made sense. But AWS uses the same HTTPS protocol everyone else uses, and it acts as an endpoint, not a middleman (middlemen would be like, a mail server or VPN). ~Max [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-web-services-takes-down-huge-swathes-of-the-internet-but-not-sdmb/955667.md?page=1)