2023 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION AND INEC’S FRIVOLOUS SERVER GLITCHES CLAIM.
I have been following all comments and discussions regarding the above subject matter just like any responsible Nigeria who has interest in having a better Nigeria than we currently have.
This letter is not about any of the candidates both at state and federal levels but about sharing my knowledge about how Amazon Web Services (AWS) or any cloud solution that INEC may be using or might have used during 2023 elections works and I keep wondering why Nigeria Computer Society and other Information Technology (IT) Professionals who abound in Nigeria have not taken time to dispel server glitches claim of INEC in a very serious technical terms because INEC definitely lied to Nigerians about the so called server technical glitches and Nigeria Computer Society and IT Professionals in Nigeria know this.
INEC should stop abusing the intelligence of Information Technology Professionals both in Nigeria and abroad. Anywhere in the world that Nigeria professionals work, our employers and colleagues alike do not joke with us. This is a fact that can be verified any day and anywhere on the globe.
What is AWS.? AWS is a cloud solution that provides each of service subscribers remote access to internetworking of computers, data network infrastructures, system security, software applications, file storage and retrieval to mention but a few (so as not to bother you or anyone reading this with lots of technical jargons).
Cloud makes it possible for people to just go on the internet to subscribe and either pay a one-time fee or monthly subscriptions for Microsoft Software suites (word, excel, power point e.t.c) for example, instead of going to the market to buy Microsoft CD to install these services on their systems and get automatic update of the software whenever Microsoft releases an update of the Software. This is why software CDs are things of the past and not efficient.
How is Cloud designed.? Cloud is a physical I.T infrastructure center that houses more than everything we used to know in various organisations as server room in the early days of internet and computer networking. As a result of various limitations of this type of arrangements because of ever increasing need of organisations for computer memory, software applications and networking infrastructure e.t.c cloud was born by huge investment into physical building that houses racks of computer components of systems internetworked to form a replica of what we have under our office and home desks as PC. As you aware the PC under our desk is always connected to our monitors and networking infrastructure like routers, switches e.t.c via cables of different types.
This arrangement is also replicated in cloud. However, instead of our PCs sitting under our desk in homes and offices, our PCs are located several miles away from us and we do not use cable to connect to our PCs (to access our files, folders, software, data and other resources like securing our PCs e.t.c) instead, we use internet to connect to our highly secured PCs (secure from hacking and unauthorised access) located several miles away from us. Apart from password that we set as individual user to access our PCs resources, every other security concern is the responsibility of Cloud Service Provider to which we may subscribed. In the case of INEC AWS.
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Redundancy Systems in Cloud Solutions. The scenario outlined above is a case of a single region (which means that the user’s PCs, servers, software, applications, and other resources are in a single rack space located in a remote datacentre. However, to give customers high server resilient and near zero
disruption to or down time of AWS through which a service user can access his or her resources, AWS always implement server redundancy for each subscriber. The redundancy also comes in different types.
There could be a situation where a user has access to two or more compute resources in multiple rack spaces in the same remote data center (in the same region and same zone – data centre), there could also be a situation where a user will have compute resources across many remote secured data center regions (multiple regions and multiple zones – data centre) that may span two or more countries. Please read page 140 – 150 of the bigger attached documents for more information on AWS availability configuration.
Moreover, some customers may also want to have a replica of their information domesticated in their organisation in addition to what they have in the remote data centre. Therefore, they may have a corporate data centre connected to their services in the cloud. A sample of this scenario is in the one-page document attached.
As you can see in the one-page diagram that even if there is a problem in customer’s data centre, customer’s data and resources will be available in the cloud region and availability zone(s) configured for the customer.
In addition, AWS also operates caches system solution for customers.
As at 26/04/2023 AWS has the following Regions (physical locations around the world where AWS clusters data centers) and Availability Zones (each data centre):
- Africa Region: Located in Cape Town South Africa (Launched in 2020) and has 3 Availability Zones for redundancy.
AWS Africa Regional Edge Locations: A site that AWS partners use to cache copies of user’s contents for faster delivery to users. In other words, it is a data center used to deliver content fast to users. It is the site that is nearest to users.
Africa Regional Edge locations – Cape Town, South Africa; Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya - Europe has 8 Regions, each with 3 Availability Zones as follows: Ireland launched in 2007; Frankfurt launched in 2014; London launched in 2016; Paris launched in 2017; Stockholm launched in 2018; Milan launched in 2020; Zurich launched in 2022 and Spain launched in 2022.
In addition to these, AWS has below European Edge locations
AWS European Edge locations for fast users contents delivery: Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Athens, Greece; Berlin, Germany; Brussels, Belgium; Bucharest, Romania; Budapest, Hungary; Copenhagen, Denmark; Dublin, Ireland; Dusseldorf, Germany; Frankfurt, Germany; Hamburg, Germany; Helsinki, Finland; Lisbon, Portugal; London, England; Madrid, Spain; Manchester, England; Marseille, France; Milan, Italy; Munich, Germany; Oslo, Norway; Palermo, Italy; Paris, France; Prague, Czech Republic; Rome, Italy; Sofia, Bulgaria; Stockholm, Sweden; Vienna, Austria; Warsaw, Poland; Zagreb, Croatia; Zurich, Switzerland.
In addition to the above, there are also Regional Edge Caches in the following countries serving users who are using resources from European data centres – Dublin, Ireland; Frankfurt, Germany; London, England.
Page 2 of 5 - AWS North America Regions: US West (Oregon) launched in 2011 with 4 Availability Zones and 7 local zones launched in 2019; US East (Northern Virginia) Launched in 2006 and another launched in 2020. With 6 Availability Zones and 10 local zones; US West (Northern California) launched in 2009 with 3 availability zones. US East (Ohio) launched in 2016 with 3 availabilities.
Canada (Central) launched in 2016 with 3 Availability Zones. GovCloud (US-West) launched in 2011 with 3 availability zones.
AWS North America Region Edge Locations:
Edge locations – Ashburn, VA; Atlanta GA; Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Dallas/Fort Worth, TX; Denver, CO; Hillsboro, OR; Houston, TX; Jacksonville, FL; Los Angeles, CA; Miami, FL; Minneapolis, MN; Montreal, QC; New York, NY; Newark, NJ; Palo Alto, CA; Phoenix, AZ; Philadelphia, PA; Querétaro, MX; San Jose, CA; Seattle, WA; Toronto, ON; Vancouver, BC
AWS North America Local Zones – Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York City (located in New Jersey), Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle.
AWS North America Regional Edge Caches – California; Northern Virginia; Ohio; Oregon. - AWS South America Region
South America (São Paulo) launched in 2011 with 3 availability zones.
AWS South America Region Edge Locations
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; São Paulo, Brazil; Bogota, Colombia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Santiago, Chile
AWS South America Regional Edge Caches – São Paulo, Brazil. - AWS Middle East Region
Bahrain launched in 2019 with 3 availability zones; UAE launched in 2022 with 3 availability zones.
AWS Middle East Region Edge Locations.
Edge locations – Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Fujairah, United Arab Emirates; Manama, Bahrain; Tel Aviv, Israel. - Asia Pacific Region.
Singapore launched in 2010 with 3 availability zones; Tokyo launched in 2011 with 4 availability zones; Seoul launched in 2016 with 4 availability zones; Mumbai launched in 2016 with 3 availability zones; Hong Kong launched in 2019 with 3 availability zones; Osaka launched in 2021 with 3 availability zones; Jakarta launched in 2021 with 3 availability zones; Hyderabad launched in 2022 with 3 availability zones;
Beijing with 3 availability zones; Ningxia with 3 availability zones.
AWS Asia Pacific Regional Edge Locations
Edge locations – Bangalore, India; Bangkok, Thailand; Chennai, India; Beijing, China, Shanghai, China, Ningxia, China, Shenzhen, China, Hong Kong SAR, China; Hyderabad, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; Kolkata, India; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Manila, The Philippines; Mumbai, India; New Delhi, India; Osaka, Japan; Seoul, Korea; Singapore; Taipei, Taiwan; Tokyo, Japan; Zhongwei, China.
AWS Asia Pacific Regional Edge Caches – Mumbai, India; Seoul, Korea; Singapore; Tokyo, Japan. - Australia and New Zealand Region
Sydney launched in 2012 with 3 availability zones; Melbourne launched in 2023 with 3 availability zones.
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Australia and New Zealand Regional Edge Locations
Edge locations – Auckland, NZ; Melbourne, Australia; Perth, Australia; Singapore; Sydney, Australia
Australia and New Zealand Regional Edge Caches – Sydney, Australia.
AWS cloud service is robust and the most widely used cloud solution in the world. AWS is designed with robust security and disaster recovery capability with major focus on customers and users in mind.
Organisations in banking and finance, insurance, government, stock exchanges, military, security, highly regulated businesses rely on AWS for their cloud solutions and if what INEC claims were to be valid, such experience claimed by INEC could have happened in other organisation.
Having said this, there must be a service level agreement signed by AWS and INEC for service provisioning and I do not expect INEC to agree with AWS the service level that INEC experienced during presidential election. AWS cloud solutions down time cannot be more than at most and worst-case scenario 59seconds (except in critical situation of nature disaster like earthquake, flood, or fire incidence) in a year for the type of INEC business. This is a fact that can be checked with AWS.
Moreover, as you can see in the two attached document and from details of AWS regional data centre, edge locations as well as cache locations, election results cannot only reside in INEC corporate server. The results are also available in one or more of the redundant servers configured for INEC by AWS for the 2023 elections.
Therefore, AWS should be asked to produce the results in the redundancy servers of INEC which is available wherever such redundant server was set up for INEC election services especially presidential and legislative elections of February 25th, 2023.
AWS should be able to provide the results except AWS conspired to meddle with Nigeria election.
I also suggest that everyone in INEC I.T department and all I.T contractors should be arrested and interrogated while government initiate forensic investigations into INEC server as there is nothing like perfect crime. Every crime scene must leave a trace behind.
Finally, I believe AWS should be asked by the court to come and explain to the court with a copy of the service availability that AWS agreed with INEC and the reason(s) for INEC server which is part or cloud services delivered to INEC by AWS should failed and not restored within agreed service level agreement because as at today 27/04/2023, not all the results are on INEC portal for Nigerians to view contrary to INEC chairman’s claims before elections and this cannot be the service level that AWS agreed with INEC.
