That may be the intention [2], but it isn't the effect.
Prioritizing EBS as was suggested above is prioritizing by server. But let's say that there was some reasonable way to priority-queue EBS-like traffic regardless of the provider (there really isn't [1]). The DDOS attacker would then certainly use this priority channel, which would magnify the effect of their attack ten fold.
[1] Let me explain this in greater detail:
The best way to do QoS is to have end-devices tag their own IP traffic with the appropriate DSCP bits. After all, only the end devices can be really certain about the class of some packet. In your network, you then establish policies for how the various classes of packets should be prioritized and limited.
This works great inside a private network (like AWS, or an ISP). For one thing, you can establish clear standards on how different types of packets should be marked, and you can order them appropriately. You can trust the classifications to the same degree you trust your own systems and (potentially) your customers (depending on checks you do at your service edge). Also, your network gear can prioritize efficiently because only one bit field needs to be checked to determine priority.
Once you step outside of a private network, this all breaks down. First off, most carriers strip DSCP bits at the network edge, so these don't propagate end to end on the internet. Even if you receive a DSCP tag from the outside though, why should you trust it, and how could you trust that it is tagged according to your policies? If Youtube sets all their traffic network control priority, and you trust it, your network would grind to a halt under load. More problematically, though, how can you meaningfully (and generically) differentiate Youtube packets from DDOS packets?
I don't expect you to have answers to these questions; they are hard problems that the best internet engineers in the world haven't solved yet. But this is the background on why an enforced government Net Neutrality mandate is going to throw all QoS policies into question.
[2] And trust me, I've very sympathetic to that intention. On net, Net Neutrality would be a win for my business. But it is still bad policy. What makes people so sure we should give politicians like GWB or Pelosi final say about network engineering [3]...
[3] Once the interest groups realize that centralized national network engineering policy is up for grabs in Washington every 2 years, have you thought about all the unpleasant directions this could go?
To be honest, I'm not actually sure what QOS even has to do with the initial post in this thread; wouldn't a dedicated private ethernet network between the ECC machines and the EBS machines (assuming it's possible within Amazon's network structure) have worked, assuming that their switches are configured to only allow communication between ECC and EBS (forbid ECC - ECC traffic)? Your commentary about how this would deprioritize other traffic wouldn't then be quite right; it would be a dedicated network, with no cost to any external sites. It would obviously give EBS an "unfair" advantage over anybody who wants to provide an ECC block storage solution to compete with EBS, but honestly, is that a concern? Nobody's demanding that all internet hosts (end-user included) have the same bandwidth to all other hosts. It's just artificial crippling of services that are bad, not some things having advantages over others.
QoS on the general web doesn't seem likely, as you point out. Prioritization based on which services can afford to pay off all the nation's ISPs seems like a really bad idea though. As a service provider, I don't want to have to pay kickbacks to every ISP in the country (world?) to ensure that no unfortunate accidents befall my traffic. Much more personally, though, as a human, I'm sick of being sold as a product. I don't watch commercial TV because I'm not a product to be sold to advertisers. Similarly, I'm not a product for Comcast to sell to google; that's how they see me, but it's not how I see myself. And, I get pissed off when people see me that way :)
With appropriate capacity, a VLAN/QoS configuration is functionally identical to having physically separated networks. On an abstract level, if you object to provider prioritization, you should probably object to them running separate physical networks for their own services.
As to your point about feeling screwed by the (mostly theoretical) possibility of intentional service degradation, I sympathize. I'll point out though that 1) I'm quite certain this isn't terribly prevalent in the US, 2) in most cases where people think this is happening it is the result of simple under-capacity or generally bad network design or management, and 3) the correct answer to this general issue is to enable provider competition, not to impose ham-handed mandates.
I can't reply to tc's reply to me (I think that "feature" should probably be disabled, btw; it tends to lead to broken threads like this one, and inhibits discussion), so I'm replying to myself, like a monster.
Service provider competition is definitely the answer. Where I live, we finally have a competitor to Comcast (Qwest), and t-mobile is also gearing up for a bit of wireless service. I've heard that some municipalities assert ownership of their power grids, phone lines, pretty much everything that's built on public land, and they force open competition for providing services over those infrastructure pieces. That would definitely be preferable to net neutrality, but it seems that wresting ownership of infrastructure from the ISPs is even more offensive than the creation of neutrality provisions. At least new communities can learn from existing ones and have sane starting points for competition, I guess.
[2] and [3], I think may have been written after I posted, or maybe I'm just blind. Either way...
I'm definitely uncertain about what bad politicians would do with control over the net's structure. I do know exactly what the CEOs of major ISPs will do though: they will maximize short-term profit. I've seen a lot of short-term profit maximization in my (rather short) life, and I haven't seen any of it turn out well. We used to have companies that had long-term goals, fundamental research divisions, the ability to see past next quarter's profits. I'm not sure where those companies are now, but if they're gone, it seems that the government is the only entity left that can have a long-term goal. Of course, long-term for our (US) government tends to be the election cycle, which is 2, 4, or 6 years. Not good, but perhaps not as bad as it could be. It's also easier to change the government than it is to change a huge company, although neither of those things is an easy thing to do.
I'm not sure that net neutrality is quite as sweeping as you see it either. If congress is getting into peering agreements, protocol design, things like that, then we're definitely all doomed. If they're just slapping down anti-competitive measures like charging companies for access to ISP subscribers, then I can definitely get behind that. It's a matter of degrees, I guess.
the CEOs of major ISPs will...maximize short-term profit
I think you may be unfairly maligning a bunch of folks who do actually care about their customers, but in any case, the correct answer is to enable competition, not to add regulation.
As for how sweeping it is, knowledgeable people in the industry feel like this is going to impair their ability to make reasonable network design choices, and in some cases force them to lay physically separate networks to do an identical job. Once it is established that Washington has that level of control (effectively making a public resource out of private networks), it seems reasonable judging from historical precedence that they will expand their jurisdiction (the special interests will smell blood).
(On a meta-note, I wrote 2&3 before seeing your response. We were likely writing in parallel.)
Prioritizing EBS as was suggested above is prioritizing by server. But let's say that there was some reasonable way to priority-queue EBS-like traffic regardless of the provider (there really isn't [1]). The DDOS attacker would then certainly use this priority channel, which would magnify the effect of their attack ten fold.
[1] Let me explain this in greater detail:
The best way to do QoS is to have end-devices tag their own IP traffic with the appropriate DSCP bits. After all, only the end devices can be really certain about the class of some packet. In your network, you then establish policies for how the various classes of packets should be prioritized and limited.
This works great inside a private network (like AWS, or an ISP). For one thing, you can establish clear standards on how different types of packets should be marked, and you can order them appropriately. You can trust the classifications to the same degree you trust your own systems and (potentially) your customers (depending on checks you do at your service edge). Also, your network gear can prioritize efficiently because only one bit field needs to be checked to determine priority.
Once you step outside of a private network, this all breaks down. First off, most carriers strip DSCP bits at the network edge, so these don't propagate end to end on the internet. Even if you receive a DSCP tag from the outside though, why should you trust it, and how could you trust that it is tagged according to your policies? If Youtube sets all their traffic network control priority, and you trust it, your network would grind to a halt under load. More problematically, though, how can you meaningfully (and generically) differentiate Youtube packets from DDOS packets?
I don't expect you to have answers to these questions; they are hard problems that the best internet engineers in the world haven't solved yet. But this is the background on why an enforced government Net Neutrality mandate is going to throw all QoS policies into question.
[2] And trust me, I've very sympathetic to that intention. On net, Net Neutrality would be a win for my business. But it is still bad policy. What makes people so sure we should give politicians like GWB or Pelosi final say about network engineering [3]...
[3] Once the interest groups realize that centralized national network engineering policy is up for grabs in Washington every 2 years, have you thought about all the unpleasant directions this could go?