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What I don't understand, and perhaps you may help me understand; is what powers the backend of AWS? Mainframes?



Watch this video from 2016 by James Hamilton at AWS Re:Invent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyOAjFNPAbA

It'll tell you lots about how AWS is built


Depending on the service, but mainly a whole bunch of custom x86 machines. If you search you'll find nuggets about all 4 hyperscalers and what they're doing.

I know Amazon went the route of building their own smart NICs with both network and IO capabilities early (The same thing Nvidia is doing and calling revolutionary since last year)

They rack more servers per day than I could afford in a lifetime.


> is what powers the backend of AWS?

Full exact technical details aren't shared, but there are some videos on Youtube which touch on it their customized x86 and ARM server racks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6WlzHLxNKI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukWig2QLCWM




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