[nycbug-talk] Amazon Web Services replacing tradition?

[Matt Juszczak]

I feel like this is mostly on-topic because it deals with the underlying 
hardware that the operating system we use on a day to day basis 
would/could run on.

I'm noticing more and more organizations, start-ups especially, switching 
their infrastructure over to virtualization, such as Amazon EC2/S3.

While I think these sorts of setups (launching/removing instances on the 
fly, scripting the launch of new infrastructure, etc.) have their purpose, 
I don't think they are a catch-all for every sort of possible setup.

For instance, I can't see how the slow disk I/O of s3 and the lack of 
ability to specify physical location of servers (on a topology level) 
could be good for database and database replication?

So, are these things the wave of the future, and will dedicated/co-located 
data center setups fade, or will these types of solutions find their niche 
but expand no further?

Just wondering what everyone's thoughts are.