Amazon Web Services Loses Dating Website Client Due to Repeat Outages
July 6, 2012
Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.
Amazon Web Services suffered an outage in early June, and again this weekend. The outage affected more than just Instagram, Pinterest and Netflix users. Thousands of lonely singles using dating website WhatsYourPrice.com were also affected. Today, WhatsYourPrice.com, the world’s largest online dating website where members bid for first dates, announced it is terminating its use of Amazon Web Services EC2 permanently.
Cloud computing is sexy. However, as the recent outage at Amazon’s cloud computing services illustrates, it can also produce a lot of unhappy customers. In the past month, Amazon’s Internet-based computing services (AWS) have suffered two major outages. The first occurred a few weeks ago on June 14, caused by a series of problems with generators and electrical switching equipment. And again this past weekend, due to severe thunderstorms in the East Coast.
Instagram, Pinterest and Netflix users aren’t the only ones affected by Amazon’s recent server crashes. In fact, thousands of singles using dating website WhatsYourPrice.com was affected as well…
Today, WhatsYourPrice.com, the world’s largest online dating-auction website, announced that it will no longer be utilizing Amazon Web Services EC2 due to Amazon’s unpredictable datacenter issues. Brandon Wade, the CEO and Founder of WhatsYourPrice.com, states that the online-dating community is least forgiving with downtime.
“Services focused on dating and relationships require constant accessibility,” says Wade who holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from MIT. “While you can watch a movie tomorrow if you miss it today, dating is all about the serendipity of meeting the right person at the right time. If an online dating service is not available, a user may lose the chance to meet his or her soul mate forever.”
When Amazon’s EC2 service experienced an outage on June 14, WhatsYourPrice.com was flooded with thousands of member complaints. Repeated calls into Amazon’s support team yielded no response. So, when the AWS experienced yet another outage this past weekend, WhatsYourPrice.com decided to permanently move its website over to a Las Vegas-based hosting facility.
“Amazon’s failure has negatively affected our website’s reputation as a reliable online dating destination,” says Wade, who was the IT Infrastructure executive at General Electric. “100% uptime is a required SLA for anyone providing cloud computing services. Amazon’s inability to provide such service levels is the main reason we have decided to quit using AWS EC2 altogether.”