I don't necessarily agree with it, but the common response to this is all about timing.
With AWS you don't have any control over "higher risk" times. If you have a massive launch coming up, or you are nearing peak usage for the year, or your clients need you to be stable for the next few months, you can't put updates on hold, you don't know to get a few more people on standby, you can't choose to not make changes to your system, because it's not your system.
With an in house solution you can choose to lock it down for a month, or do the risky upgrades/changes at your lowest traffic time, or even give your customers a heads up if needed. Hell even just being able to mak e sure that your best sysadmin isn't out getting hammered when you go to make changes could go a long way.
There is some merit to that idea, but I personally feel the track record of many of these services is so near perfect that the chances of unexpected downtime is still smaller than most could realistically manage.
With AWS you don't have any control over "higher risk" times. If you have a massive launch coming up, or you are nearing peak usage for the year, or your clients need you to be stable for the next few months, you can't put updates on hold, you don't know to get a few more people on standby, you can't choose to not make changes to your system, because it's not your system.
With an in house solution you can choose to lock it down for a month, or do the risky upgrades/changes at your lowest traffic time, or even give your customers a heads up if needed. Hell even just being able to mak e sure that your best sysadmin isn't out getting hammered when you go to make changes could go a long way.
There is some merit to that idea, but I personally feel the track record of many of these services is so near perfect that the chances of unexpected downtime is still smaller than most could realistically manage.