#Infrastructure
446 posts
AI Training Servers vs. Inference Servers — Where the Requirements Diverge
Why the same "AI server" question has two very different answers: batch versus request-serving workload shapes, GPU interconnect versus memory bandwidth as the bottleneck, precision and quantization, cost structures, and the trap of trying to share one fleet for both.
RDS Instance Classes Compared: db.t vs db.m vs db.r
A working standard for choosing RDS instance classes: the db. prefix on EC2 naming rules, why the same hardware costs roughly twice as much (management included, Multi-AZ extra), why db.t does not belong in production, the buffer-pool criterion that separates db.m from db.r, and why moving to Graviton is easier on RDS than on EC2.
EC2 Instance Families Compared: Choosing Between t, m, c, and r
A working standard for choosing EC2 instance types: how to read type names (family, generation, attributes), when the t burstable model fits and when it backfires, the vCPU-to-memory ratios behind m, c, and r with large-size price comparisons, choosing between Graviton, Intel, and AMD, and sizing from CloudWatch and Compute Optimizer measurements.
How to Read NVIDIA GPU Names — Architecture Generations and Product Lines
Reading H100, B200, GB300, L40S, and RTX 5090 as a system rather than a code: the scientist-named architecture axis and the datacenter/inference/consumer product-line axis, what the digits and prefixes mean, and the generation landscape and roadmap as of mid-2026.
GPU Servers vs. General Servers — Architecture, Power, Cooling, Price
Where a GPU server stops being a regular server with a graphics card in it: the inverted architecture and interconnects, power density an order of magnitude higher and the arrival of liquid cooling, the price structure, the driver stack, and why utilization management becomes the job.
gp3 vs io2 — How to Choose an EBS Volume Type
A working standard for choosing EBS volume types: the legacy of gp2's size-coupled, burst-credit model, gp3's independent provisioning and raised ceilings (80,000 IOPS, 2,000MB/s), the conditions that actually justify io2 Block Express, sizing IOPS from measurements, and converting gp2 to gp3 with no downtime.
Why Your Server Is Slow #5: When the Database Slows Down — Indexes, Locks, Connection Pools
Tracking down why a database that ran fine is getting slower. Covers full scans collapsing the day data growth crosses a threshold, indexes that exist but never get used, lock wait chains rooted in long transactions, telling pool exhaustion from database saturation, and a diagnostic order built on EXPLAIN and the statistics views.
Migrating EC2 to Graviton — Real Savings and a Migration Checklist
What moving x86 instances to Graviton (arm64) actually saves, and the procedure for getting there: the generation landscape (Graviton4 mainstream, Graviton5 GA), which workloads move easily and where it gets stuck, multi-architecture image builds, canary cutover, and extending to RDS and Lambda.
Why Your Server Is Slow #4: Plenty of Bandwidth, Still Slow — Latency, RTT, Retransmissions
Tracking down why the network feels slow while the link sits mostly idle. Covers how RTT times round-trip count sets perceived speed, the handshake cost of TCP and TLS, BDP and window limits, checking packet loss and retransmissions, and connection reuse.
AWS Services and Settings That Quietly Leak Money — a Standing Checklist
The waste that raises your AWS baseline without ever making a spike: leftover gp2 volumes, public IPv4 addresses, NAT Gateway by design, logs retained forever, old instance generations, abandoned load balancers, S3 storage classes, and dev environments running around the clock — with how to check each one.
Why Your Server Is Slow #3: Slow Despite an SSD — Write Amplification, fsync, Queue Depth
Tracking down why storage is the bottleneck even on an SSD. Covers the fine print behind spec-sheet IOPS, the cost of durable writes through fsync, SLC cache exhaustion and write amplification, the physical limits of queue depth 1, and the IOPS ceilings of cloud volumes.
When Your AWS Bill Suddenly Jumps — the 10 Most Common Causes
A field guide for the month your AWS bill doubles: the order for finding the culprit, and the ten causes that come up most in practice — NAT Gateway data processing, CloudWatch Logs ingestion, snapshot accumulation, data transfer, expiring RIs and Savings Plans — each with how to confirm it and what to do.