AWS chief: Tens of thousands flocking from database rivals

AWS's database migration service (DMS) is storming along according to its head Andy Jassy, who offered a rare data point on the company's development last week. Jassy took to Twitter to boast that Amazon Web Services had facilitated 16,000 database migrations last year, since launching on 15 March. 2,000 of those migrations …

[Alister]

<wilfully misunderstanding>

"with virtually no downtime"

</wilfully misunderstanding>

So, is virtual downtime the same as real downtime, only distributed over more hardware?

[theblackhand]

Re:virtual downtime

It's like real downtime, but because it is virtualised, you no longer have to worry about the reliability of hardware interrupting or preventing your downtime as you just move your applications to a less functional node when the node you are on starts to function correctly.

[AMBxx]

Real migrations?

Are these genuine migrations or just test/play?

[Anonymous Coward]

That photograph...

Couldn't you find a picture of lemmings?

[Mr.Nobody]

16K Sounds like a lot, but

it isn't. I think we have more than 6000 databases here. If they all got moved with no downtime (lost on how that works) that would be a sizeable chunk of what was moved.

[P. Lee]

>#AWS #Reinvent. DB freedom is a powerful thing.

Oh the shackles of Postgres and MariaDB! If only I could migrate my data to a proprietary vendor and have to rewrite my application to use it!

Ok, I can think of many instances when rewriting an enterprise application so that it deals with high-latency well would actually be a good thing, but even so - DB Freedom? #AWS #reinvent #mockHP #newspeak #twitterIsASelfPromotionVehicle

[Anonymous Coward]

MS Access virus

There are millions of crappy MS Access databases out there. I'm sure they could be included in the stats as well.

[Korev]

Re: MS Access virus

Although Access doesn't scale and has funny SQL; an Access DB is often light years better than the Excel "databases" they normally replace. Moreover, if your users have made an Access DB then it's more likely to be in a structure that can migrated to Postgres, Oracle etc reasonably easily.

[theblackhand]

Re: MS Access virus

Wouldn't a better comparison be two car crashes?

Excel:

You'll notice the primary reason for this crash was that the vehicle had no steering wheel and instead used a spike that resulted in the driver being impaled when they were unable to negotiate the first bend in the road. There were no survivors.

Access:

In this case, the driver has been provided not only with a steering wheel, but also additional seats in the vehicle. Unfortunately the steering wheel did not do anything and the vehicle failed to negotiate the first bend. Fortunately the driver was protected by the air bag and there was minimal damage to the car, but all passengers died. The vehicle was repaired and the air bag replaced. This is the 23rd time this has happened and the driver continues to recommend the safety of the vehicle.