Delete comment from: DSHR's Blog
Hi, Adrian!
Decentralization and distribution are two different things. Vitalik Buterin identifies three axes of (de)centralization:
- Architectural (de)centralization — how many physical computers is a system made up of? How many of those computers can it tolerate breaking down at any single time?
- Political (de)centralization — how many individuals or organizations ultimately control the computers that the system is made up of?
- Logical (de)centralization— does the interface and data structures that the system presents and maintains look more like a single monolithic object, or an amorphous swarm? One simple heuristic is: if you cut the system in half, including both providers and users, will both halves continue to fully operate as independent units?
As far as I can see, systems built on AWS may be architecturally decentralized (but are more likely just distributed), but are politically and logically centralized so, even if decentralization delivered its promised advantages, they would get few of them.
I believe that AWS is better at running data centers than companies. Whether they are enough better to outweigh the added risk that comes from correlations between the failure of my system and failures of other systems at AWS that my system depends upon (say my supply chain partners) is an interesting question.
As far as I can see the biggest selling point of AWS is that it provides the in-house IT organization some place to point fingers when things go wrong. Its the modern equivalent of "no-one ever got fired for buying IBM".
Jan 16, 2018, 4:26:04 AM
Posted to It Isn't About The Technology