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Amazon's Move Off Oracle Caused Prime Day Outage in One of its Biggest Warehouses, Internal Report Says (cnbc.com)

Posted by msmash on from the closer-look dept.

Amazon is learning how hard it can be to move off of Oracle's database software. From a report: On Prime Day, while the e-retailer was dealing with a major website glitch that slowed sales, the company was also dealing with a technical problem in Ohio at one of its biggest warehouses, leading to thousands of delayed package deliveries, according to an internal report obtained by CNBC. The problem was in large part due to Amazon's migration from Oracle's database to its own technology, the documents show. The outage underscores the challenge Amazon faces as it looks to move completely off Oracle's database by 2020, and how difficult it is to re-create that level of reliability. It also shows that Oracle's database is more efficient in some aspects than Amazon's rival software, a point that Oracle will likely emphasize during this week's annual OpenWorld conference in San Francisco.

4 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. Really? by willaien · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Was it just a regular outage that could have happened to anyone, or something very specific to their own infrastructure?

    Just because a change was made at some point in the past, you don't get to just assume that everything would have been fine if Change X or Y hadn't been made. Oracle isn't a silver bullet.

    1. Re:Really? by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Was it just a regular outage that could have happened to anyone, or something very specific to their own infrastructure?

      Just because a change was made at some point in the past, you don't get to just assume that everything would have been fine if Change X or Y hadn't been made. Oracle isn't a silver bullet.

      This, and the obvious risk of issues anytime you make such a large change. You fix them and move on. "thousands of delayed packages" sounds like a blip for Amazon. Bad weather can do that.

  2. Re:MongoDB is webscale by AlanBDee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't understand why Oracle even exists given my experience with it.

    Because it's a damn good database. The question isn't about it's capabilities, it's whether it's worth the cost. As for their other products I agree with you; it's way too sluggish. But I believe Amazon was just using their database.

    Now Amazon moving away from Oracle is a good thing; as servers get faster and the open source alternatives get better Oracle's database is losing it's foothold. I for one won't be sad to see that happen.

  3. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion