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Lightning Strike KOs Amazon, Microsoft EuroClouds

Posted by timothy on from the this-basket-of-eggs-is-highly-conductive dept.

1sockchuck writes "A lightning strike has caused power outages at the major cloud computing data hubs for Amazon and Microsoft in Dublin, Ireland. The incident has caused downtime for many sites using Amazon's EC2 cloud computing platform and Microsoft's BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite)."

5 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. So Cloud v Cloud.... by artor3 · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...nature wins?

  2. Just imitiating Verizon. by DWMorse · · Score: 5, Funny

    I see how it is. Verizon workers go on strike, MSFT and Amazon gotta call in for something strike-related that's bigger and flashier. Show-offs.

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  3. Cloud fail by Baloroth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My understanding of the point of cloud computing was that it would be distributed. I.e. the failure of any one data or computing center would mean the data was still available. Hence, the term "cloud": nebulous, non-localized. Apparently, someone forgot to tell Microsoft and Amazon what the buzzwords they were using actually mean. I more or less expected that of M$, but the fact that Amazon failed too, well, thats pretty a little surprising. I guess it's kinda the norm for all large corporations.

    Glancing at the article, it looks like this outage effected only a certain area, but still, cloud should mean other data centers would take over. I particularly love the quote "Dublin has become a key cloud computing gateway." If one city serves as a "gateway", its not a cloud system. I understand using it as one data center, but others should take over automatically for that area in case of a failure. If you don't have a failover system, you don't have a real cloud computing platform. You have a wannabe cloud computing platform. Or maybe they are just taking a buzzword and redefining it to suit their purposes. That's... exactly what we should expect, I suppose.

    Or am I completely misunderstanding the meaning of this latest buzzword? It's quite possible, I never quite got down what "Web 2.0" was supposed to mean either. Beyond lots and lots of Flash.

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  4. Microsoft renamed its product by countertrolling · · Score: 5, Funny

    Office 364

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  5. Re:My Sympathies by kent_eh · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've been in the same spot. (10KW, 3 tower array). It's amazing how far the parts of a capacitor on a P&M panel can spread when propelled by a lightning strike.
    Even with ball gaps, chokes, and all the other effort, ultimately the transmitter has to be connected to the tower. 50 ohms is not that much different than "the shortest path to ground" when you put a few thousand KV against it.

    It took several years after my career change to enjoy the spectacle of a lightning storm

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    "I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh