[tallanvor]

You'd better believe that companies like Amazon, RIM, and all the others have very strict change management procedures. Changes to critical systems are generally planned weeks - sometimes months - in advance, and even simple changes often require multiple levels of approval. Even then, sometimes something gets missed, a component acts slightly differently than expected, or somebody makes a mistake.

All of the mistakes the article discussed were network related, and yes, when you're dealing with networks like Amazon's or RIM's, where there are hundreds of thousands or even millions of devices connected, they are definitely more complicated than a nuclear plant.