[byteclub]

Sounds like the initial investment into reengineering their software to handle distributed environments well turned out to be quite large, which is why it does sound a bit like they brought the troubles upon themselves. But presumably they now have 2 advantages: ability to scale horizontally, and having their software adapted to distributed environments (which means that technically they are not limited to AWS, in case problems arise with Amazon's service). Sounds like the foundation of their house is stronger now, which was probably the whole point of the exercise.