Amazon EC2 的 Dedicated Hosts 正式推出

Amazon EC2 在十月預告了 Dedicated Hosts (參考「Amazon EC2 預定要推出的 Dedicated Hosts」),在今天正式推出來讓大家用:「Now Available – EC2 Dedicated Hosts」。

價錢在「Amazon EC2 Dedicated Host Pricing」這邊,租用就是整台一起租用,所以價錢都是以 Instance Family 在計算,在一台 Dedicated Host 上面可以跑的虛擬機數量與 Instance Type 有關,舉例來說:c4 只能跑一個 8xlarge,也可以跑兩個 4xlarge。

一台 Dedicated Host 當然可以跑很多 Instance,不過只能跑一樣的大小的 Instance Type:

I choose the instance type (Dedicated hosts for M3, M4, C3, C4, G2, R3, D2, and I2 instances are available), the Availability Zone, and the quantity (each Dedicated Host can accommodate one or more instances of a particular type, all of which must be the same size).

另外 Dedicated Hosts 一定要放到 VPC 內 (理論上新帳號都有強迫這樣了),不過可以跨 VPC 就是了:

Instances launched on a Dedicated Host must always reside within a VPC. A single Dedicated Host can accommodate instances that run in more than one VPC.

目前能開的數量有限制,有需要更多的人可以開 support ticket 去要:

You can allocate up to 2 Dedicated Hosts per instance family (M4, C4, and so forth) per region; if you need more, just ask.

Google 工程師在 Amazon 上對 Type C USB 線的評論

先前提到「Google 工程師在 Amazon 上留下對 USB-C 線的精彩評價...」,後來這位工程師 Benson Leung 寫了更多的評價出來,在「Amazon.com: Profile for Benson Leung」這邊可以看到。

可以看到大量的線被打了兩顆星,不過還是少數有幾條線測過了:

35 條只過了 6 條,看起來狀況不太好啊 XDDD

英國將 10Mbps 上網訂為法定權利

在「UK govt to make 10 Mbps broadband a legal right」這邊看到英國政府打算更新法案,逐步將 10Mbps 上網速度訂為法定權利。

目前法定權利是 28.8Kbps 的撥接速度:

Currently, the minimum USO for data access in Britain is just 28.8 Kbps, or dial-up speeds.

打算在今年年底拉高為 2Mbps,並且在 2020 年拉高為 10Mbps:

Under the proposal, the minimum speed specified by the USO will be raised to 2 Mbps by the end of the year, before further increasing to 10 Mbps by 2020.

英國首相 David Cameron 公開說明,internet 應該被認定為基本權利:

"Access to the internet shouldn’t be a luxury; it should be a right – absolutely fundamental to life in 21st century Britain," Cameron said.

Backblaze 的 2015 Q3 硬碟故障率報告

依照往例,Backblaze 每一季結束後不久會放出上一季的硬碟故障率報告:「What Can 49,056 Hard Drives Tell Us? Hard Drive Reliability Stats for Q3 2015」。

如果仔細看的話,小硬碟中 Seagate 的死亡率還是很高 (尤其是 ST1500DL003 與 ST3000DM001 這兩顆驚人的數字),而大硬碟 (i.e. 4TB 以上) 都還算合理範圍。

值得提的是,其中 HGST 的硬碟死亡率比起其他家低了不少?

對 SHA-1 的攻擊進展

Bruce Schneier 這邊看到對 SHA-1 的攻擊又有新的進展了:「SHA-1 Freestart Collision」。

這次的論文不是真的找出 collision,而是對 internal compression function 攻擊,不過即使如此,這是首次攻擊完整的 80 rounds:

We present in this article a freestart collision example for SHA-1, i.e., a collision for its internal compression function. This is the first practical break of the full SHA-1, reaching all 80 out of 80 steps, while only 10 days of computation on a 64 GPU cluster were necessary to perform the attack.

論文資訊可以在「The SHAppening: freestart collisions for SHA-1」這邊看到。

EC2 推出超大的 X1 系列與超小的 T2.Nano

都還沒上線,先公告而已:「EC2 Instance Update – X1 (SAP HANA) & T2.Nano (Websites)」。

Amazon EC2 將會推出了超大的 X1 系列,Intel Xeon E7 系列與 2TB RAM (比很多人硬碟大小還大 XDDD),拿來跑各種暴力應用的:

The X1 instances will be powered by up to four Intel® Xeon® E7 processors. The processors have high memory bandwidth and large L3 caches, both designed to support high-performance, memory-bound applications. With over 100 vCPUs, these instances will be able to handle highly concurrent workloads with ease.

X1 系列預定 2016 年上半年會開放使用:

We expect to have the X1 available in the first half of 2016. I’ll share pricing and other details at launch time.

另外是 T2.Nano,只有 512MB RAM,預定是今年會開放使用:

Later this year we will introduce the t2.nano instance. You’ll get 1 vCPU and 512 MB of memory, and the ability run at full core performance for over an hour on a full credit balance. Each newly launched t2.nano starts out with sufficient CPU Credits to allow you to get started as quickly as possible.

EC2 Spot Blocks:固定時間的 Spot Instances

EC2 設計 Spot Instances 提供某些應用程式可以用比較低廉的價錢租用機器,但缺點是隨時可能會中斷,所以程式必須定時記錄進度。

但不是每種應用程式都有辦法這樣做,所以一般遇到不能中斷的還是會用 On-Demand Instances 來處理。而現在 EC2 則提供了 Spot Blocks 來解決這個問題:「New – EC2 Spot Blocks for Defined-Duration Workloads」。

你可以設定 1 到 6 個小時的執行時間,時間到就會自動結束:

In order to make EC2 an even better fit for this type of defined-duration workload, you can now launch Spot instances that will run continuously for a finite duration (1 to 6 hours).

Spot Instances 與 Spot Blocks 是分開競價,大約比 On-Demand 便宜 30%~45%,同時在非尖峰時間另外會有 5% 的優惠:

Pricing is based on the requested duration and the available capacity, and is typically 30% to 45% less than On-Demand, with an additional 5% off during non-peak hours for the region. Spot blocks and Spot instances are priced separately; you can view the current Spot pricing to learn more.

AWS 推出備份用的硬體設備:Snowball

AWS Import/Export 服務推出硬體:「AWS Import/Export Snowball – Transfer 1 Petabyte Per Week Using Amazon-Owned Storage Appliances」。

原先 AWS Import/Export 需要自己買硬碟寄到 AWS 指定的地方,對於一次性的用途來說不太合理 (硬碟只用一次?),而現在 AWS Import/Export 推出整台 appliance 來解決這個問題,長這樣:

本身就是可郵寄的包裝,包括了 E-ink 電子墨水面板 (很明顯是從 Kindle 那邊弄來的技術),所以連寄回的地址都不用填寫。而本身就有防水防震設計保護寄送過程稍微摔到或是淋到水也不會有事情,另外透過 AES 256bits 安全加密確保資料不會被盜用,NIST Special Publication 800-88 確認加密的資料沒有被盜取。

整個規劃看起來很有種軍規的設計感...

而每個 appliance 可以傳輸 50TB 的資料:

From there you simply copy up to 50 terabytes of data to the Snowball and disconnect it (a shipping label will automatically appear on the E Ink display), and ship it back to us for ingestion.

目前支援美東 (us-east-1) 與美西二區 (us-west-2):

You can import data to the US Standard and US West (Oregon) regions, with more on the way.

怎麼說呢,很科幻感的東西?