Category: storage

In our initial post on the AWS topic we explained how to automate regular EBS volume snapshot creation using a small Linux instance as a controlling and automation server. Now it is time to fill in the gap of what happens next: automated copy from region 1 to region 2.

We begin a series of posts on our first-hand experience with Amazon Web Services (AWS) hosting platform and accompanied technologies. While allegedly possessing ten times more cloud resources than the top 14 other IaaS providers taken together (according to May 2015 reports), Amazon today is that certain behemoth reigning over them all. Economics aside, what amazes us most about AWS is how tons of feature-rich offerings, abundance of documentation, and gazillions of online discussions present so little for a young pioneer that takes on her first AWS quest. That is easy with AWS to launch an instance, though most of subsequent steps require planning, in some cases profound research, or, in other words, a difficult path full of trials, tribulations, and overdrawn accounts. That pay as you go paradigm needs budgeting and verification to be efficient.

We have made a trip to data center recently to replace a faulty 900Gb hard drive in a RAID-10 logical volume of a 3.5 year old HP server. In the modern age of cloud hosting we still manage a few physical servers, for various reasons but mostly for our clients. Since last year we knew the drive may fail due to growing number of soft errors and ordered two extra drives in advance to be ready for day X: one as a replacement and another as a spare for that volume.