Thread by @QuinnyPig

And now, a final "Opinions My Own" episode to close out the year, featuring @primitivetype.

(Video at virtual.reinvent.awsevents.com/session-virtua…)

Dave Brown is the VP of EC2 at AWS, which is too many acronyms. He declines to address the platypus in the room.

"So you run all of @awscloud EC2. I'm not saying that's a high stress job, but you *are* only 22 years old. How do you live with that kind of pressure?"

@primitivetype: "Maybe in hex. The trick is to have an amazing team."

Dave preaches the virtues of delegation. "@awscloud teaches all of us how to scale. Continuous scale isn't really optional here."

I point out that Dave had to do it the hard way and build this all from scratch. The point of cloud computing is that I don't have to use crappy things like a bunch of Raspberries Pi to build a site; I can start with @awscloud instances and keep going until I'm hyperscale.

"This is what I get for not properly vetting who they want me to speak with" thinks @primitivetype. He's far too kind to ever admit that, though.

I talk about the crappiness of early EC2. A single instance size (originally the m1.small), no persistent disk, etc. These days it's so much better on @awscloud. I talk about how modern instances are so much more reliable than the older instances.

Fun side note: when we stopped filming @primitivetype told me I'd stumbled over this upcoming release. OOPS! I think I found about four of those during the course of doing these interviews.

https://twitter.com/48443/status/1465891251295690755

AFR or Average Failure Rate as AWS calculates it is whenever your EC2 instance does something atypical. It doesn't even need to be a visible-to-the-customer failure. And they're learning at scale that things are improving with time.

He further notes that nobody is deploying hardware at the same scale as @awscloud. I decline to comment on that because I don't want to find myself in the middle of that vendor war. HAVE FUN STORMING THE CASTLE!

We talk briefly about the spit-take awaiting a customer who just finished their migration from c4 to c5 instances in time to catch the c6i announcement.

Dave: "You comment on Twitter a fair bit about our deprecation policy."

Me: *oh crap he reads my Twitter feed*

Dave: "It's important not to break things for customers."

I assume there's one obstinate @awscloud customer on the legacy stuff. "Can we just move you to--" "NO!"

I take the time to praise the Savings Plan model over Reserved Instances. "The reason to migrate now is architectural and not dictated by economic considerations on a 3 year timescale."

I wish more things participated, like RDS. #awswishlist

I "helpfully" point out that 'Serverless' is a personal attack on @primitivetype. I speculate it was @ajassy unhappy with Dave's performance one year that led to the Lambda announcement in the first place.

Dave confirms that AWS services all live on top of EC2.

That's a big deal! "Is there some internal EC2-alike that runs your stuff?" "Absolutely not."

The fact that they use the same stuff internally that they sell us is incredibly important.

I reference this video. "I'm going to assume you just showed up at an Apple retail store one day and pulled a 'so, I'd like to buy some Mac Minis' and busted out the corporate credit card."

If so @primitivetype has enough Amex points to go to space now.

https://twitter.com/awscloud/status/1333631526999896066

I reference that there's precedent to @awscloud buying Apple devices in bulk. Device Farm has a bunch of iOS and Android devices in data centers. It sounds like a prank but it's in fact real.

https://twitter.com/66780587/status/806997309993037824

"The one thing we can't do on the Mac Mini is pressing the power button on it programmatically."

Me: "So is that the worst internship in the world, or..."

@primitivetype: "Nope. We have a solenoid in the rack that mechanically pushes a button."

Me: "Can you hear the solenoid when it triggers?"

Dave: *what the hell kind of question is that* "I... don't think you can. Ever stand next to an Outpost?"

Me: "No, I have to lie and tell you folks I have a loading dock on my house to get one."

I talk about the "interesting" naming convention for instances.

@primitivetype: "Yeah, I remember you saying it looked like Dave Brown and Matt Garman were playing a game of Battleship with the naming."

I am astounded to realize that people remember the nonsense I say here.

"Thanks for joining me on 'Opinions My Own.'" It's unclear whether @primitivetype or the platypus was less impressed with my shenanigans.

Thanks to @awscloud for allowing me to get away with these shenanigans; it was a heck of a lot of fun.