Amazon has publicly debunked the story about Eli Lilly moving out of Amazon Web Services. In a Twitter message posted by Amazon CTO Werner Vogels, Amazon categorically state that Eli Lilly is still their customer.For those following this anonymous source story this morning: Eli Lilly is still very much a customer and has not dropped their use of AWS
This response from Amazon was prompted by a post earlier by Searchcloudcomputing.com which claimed that Eli Lilly has backed out of AWS because they couldn't get Amazon to indemnify them against network outages, security breaches and other forms of risk inherent in the cloud to Amazon Web Services.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) poster child Eli Lilly has walked away from the cloud computing service after failing to come to terms over legal indemnification issues.Sources close to Eli Lilly say the pharmaceutical giant was at its wits end trying to negotiate a contract with AWS that would push some accountability for network outages, security breaches and other forms of risk inherent in the cloud to Amazon Web Services. But these negotiations, sources said, got nowhere.
I would take Amazon at the face value now till Eli Lilly comes out and says otherwise. However, the issues raised by this article are still relevant and worth exploring. If Amazon is not willing to be accountable for issues like network outages, security breaches, etc., it is going to adversely affect the efforts by Amazon to lure enterprise customers into public clouds. I think it is important for Amazon to come out and discuss these issues in a transparent manner.
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Ben Kepes is an analyst, an entrepreneur, a commentator and a business adviser. His business interests include a diverse range of industries from manufacturing to property to technology. As a technology commentator he has a broad presence both in the traditional media and extensively online. Ben covers the convergance of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users. 