Cloud PLM and Amazon S3 Scale

I can see cloud PLM is trending. The announcements about running on Amazon are coming from multiple vendors. Dassault just announced few weeks ago the availability of V6 platform on AWS, Aras announced earlier this year about the availability of Aras Innovator on Amazon with support of Minerva France (former Prodeus). Autodesk aims for cloud with multiple projects – AutoCAD WS, future Autodesk PLM product and other so called “infinite computing” initiatives.

I read the following blog – Amazon S3 – more than 449 Billion Objects. Have a read and take a look on the picture below.

The numbers Amazon brings are quite impressive. I liked the following one – 64 objects for each person on Planet Earth (source: World Population Clock). It is certainly a lot. However, is it really big when you put on the scale compatible with typical PLM/Manufacturing products and projects?

Let’s talk about Boeing 747-400. If you exclude fasteners, Boeing 747-400 has about 3 million parts. For the whole history, Boeing delivered 694 of Boeing 747-400 jets. Now, let’s make calculations. There are only 650M S3 objects for each manufactured Boeing 747-400. It means about 200 S3 objects for every part in all Boeing 747-400 in the world. If we think about the cloud, it should include all part and manufacturing info, documents, drawings, revisions, etc. Is it a lot? I’m not sure. Think about different Boeing airplanes as well as Airbus jets. Make your math… YMMV. Let me know what do you think?

Best, Oleg