Just as an example of how fast things can happen in the AWS world, I skyped over to a colleague "I think we need another crawling box" at 3:48 am this morning. Then I took care of it and got that box up and running. My response back to him was at 4:09 am. So 12 + 9 or 21 minutes total to go from a 5 node installation to a 6 node installation. Coming from the world of traditional hosting where the flow is more like:

  • email hosting company
  • explain what is needed
  • go back and forth a few times
  • wait a day or two
  • run chef on the box to configure everything and have it half broken at the end because, well, chef
  • fix it manually
  • get code deployed
  • deal with randomness
  • get it running

My usual turn around time on getting a new box is close to a week when all is said and done so 21 minutes feels like, well, magic. And, honestly, I could have done it faster. I muddled about a bit, checked mail, read a tweet or two, etc. Now if I had properly scripted everything, this could have been probably less than 5 minutes end to end. I'm not yet at that point in my AWS journey (still using the AWS web tools step by step).