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from the cloud-should-be-free-of-financial-costs dept.
Audit finds that error could actually mean less data flows to boffins because space agency may not be able to afford downloads
NASA needs 215 more petabytes of storage by the year 2025, and expects Amazon Web Services to provide the bulk of that capacity. However, the space agency didn't realize this would cost it plenty in cloud egress charges. As in, it will have to pay as scientists download its data.
That omission alone has left NASA's cloud strategy pointing at the ground rather than at the heavens.
The data in question will come from NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) program, which collects information from the many missions that observe our planet. NASA makes those readings available through the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS).
To store all the data and run EOSDIS, NASA operates a dozen Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) that provide pleasing redundancy. But NASA is tired of managing all that infrastructure, so in 2019, it picked AWS to host it all
[...] "Specifically, the agency faces the possibility of substantial cost increases for data egress from the cloud," the Inspector General's Office wrote, explaining that today NASA doesn't incur extra costs when users access data from its DAACs. "However, when end users download data from Earthdata Cloud, the agency, not the user, will be charged every time data is egressed.
How many petabytes is SLS worth, I wonder?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Friday March 20 2020, @03:17AM (16 children)
Be ready for lots of problems [readitquik.com]
We're giving too much to Amazon, need to cut back on that shit
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by edIII on Friday March 20 2020, @04:39AM (11 children)
Its' not even that. Never give any corporation that kind of fucking control. Charge ME over data access charges? From MY server? Pass that smoke please, it must be good.
If you don't want the costs of managing it, then outsource the management. However, at no time do you give away actual control. Have them manage the datacenter, replace broken hard drives, and perform general systems administration. Outsource that to a managed services company at most.
NASA didn't just get tired of managing it, or hosting it, they got tired of the whole idea of storing their own data on something they own. Instead of hiring somebody to do the work, they went to a corporation that requires generous profits as part of any deal, and would apply a business model to squeeze out as much profit as possible. Amazon wasn't managing anything, but providing a product where you could load data, host it, and be charged when other people download it. Let's call what it is, a glorified hosting project. Amazon wasn't managing anything, because that would imply NASA still owned something.
It sounds like NASA wasn't expecting to cover operating costs anymore one way or the other, and expected Amazon to incur all future operating costs, including bandwidth for the contract price. Only the loading of data was included in the contract price, everything else is a-la-cart almost.
There should be a law preventing dumb fucking shit like this. We don't need to "pay above retail" FFS, the government should be paying wholesale damnit. That's what is always the problem. Inefficiency, and this is just them excelling at it.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Friday March 20 2020, @05:15AM (8 children)
NASA didn't just get tired of managing it, or hosting it, they got tired of the whole idea of storing their own data on something they own.
I suspect something a bit more... irregular. It's not logical, or even rational. cui bono?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2020, @06:07AM (7 children)
Why? It happened with scientific publishing. Almost all scientific advances are locked behind a 75 year copyright wall. This business model works.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Friday March 20 2020, @09:10AM (6 children)
The catch is that paywalled SCIENCE is not SCIENCE anymore, it is OCCULTism. Fuck the meaning of words huh, anon?
We are NASA
We have the brightest minds
We have billions of financing
We are specialized in hi tech mission critical stuff
We need to store petabytes
We can't be bothered to put up a storage company so that we can also EARN from the enterprise
In fact we are not even able to read the website docs about how the aws cloud actually works.
Score one for the flat earthers. The idea that this organization was able to send a bot on the moon looks suspect given these factoids
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Snospar on Friday March 20 2020, @09:31AM (4 children)
Wait, they sent you to the moon and even you doubt it?
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Friday March 20 2020, @10:05AM (3 children)
I don't doubt the lunokhod. Or the placing of a mirror. There is ample wiggle room between "sky is a dome" and "the lunar mission of 1969, more intent in depicting astronauts than the moon they were supposedly exploring has actually happened as told by the media plus they erased some tapes with the original footage because hey they were lying in a box and I didn't know".
There are two main problems I have: 1. 69 tech has proven impossible to replicate for others. And for NASA. 2. It is insane to send robots instead of men to missions with possible unexpected operations to perform. The poor life of the astronauts is not an argument for the chinese, for the russians and even for the USA, given that everybody was down with it in the 69 mission.
Other problems are that all the footage I recall having seen back in the time (after deepfakes contemporary video evidence is worthless in this context) looked like a 60s sci fi movie. 2001 a space odyssey was better.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2020, @01:31PM (1 child)
You don't seriously mean you don't believe in the moon landing?
Laughs Out Loud.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday March 20 2020, @02:15PM
your argument pro the human landing on the moon is noted.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday March 20 2020, @03:10PM
Other problems are that all the footage I recall having seen back in the time (after deepfakes contemporary video evidence is worthless in this context) looked like a 60s sci fi movie.
Oh c'mon! The escape scene [youtu.be] was great! Where have you ever heard a better film score?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2020, @05:34PM
Bothered?, I *suspect* that any attempt at that would have been stomped mightily upon by the politicos running the show....how dare a state funded organisation deprive our $quillionaire business friends of an extra few more $quillions of taxpayers money?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday March 20 2020, @01:27PM (1 child)
So in your world, outsourcing doesn't cost anything? Whatever they were smoking, you were inhaling secondary fumes of.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday March 20 2020, @08:25PM
Not what I meant. Sometimes outsourcing can save money. Obviously it does, otherwise there wouldn't be a lot of outsourcing.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Funny) by FatPhil on Friday March 20 2020, @01:43PM (3 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday March 20 2020, @02:17PM (2 children)
Can't happen. Insider trading is permitted on Capitol Hill. Our congress people and president are profiting right now, as we speak, from the panic [bloomberg.com]. And as usual, 90% of them will be reelected. SNAFU!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday March 21 2020, @12:34PM (1 child)
Fire! (Or is that 1A?)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday March 21 2020, @05:50PM
time to make use of 2A...
On the voters? I mean, yeah, they keep reelecting the bastards, but... Nah
Or is that 1A?
Yeah, that's the ticket! We practice that at the saloon. Leave yer gun at the door.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..