On Apr 8, 2013, at 2:15 AM, Vincent Veyron wrote:
Could someone explain to me the point of using an AWS instance in the
case of the OP, whose site is apparently very busy, versus renting a
bare metal server in a datacenter?
Well, at least in my experience, you don't go to AWS because the databases there are awesome. You go to AWS because you have highly cyclical load patterns, can't predict your future capacity needs, tend to have very large batch jobs, etc. So then you have most of your servers living in AWS, and if you need low latencies to your database (which most people do) then it often makes sense to try to make your database live in AWS as well, instead of putting it a VPN hop away.
I wouldn't claim that AWS is the best place to run a database, but for running a service, of which a database is just one part, you could do a lot worse if you do it right.