Amazon has promoted RightScale in the past (and presumably the two continue to have a close relationship). So it seems understandable that RightScale would want to adopt a diplomatic tone.
However, imo an executive summary that starts with "The Amazon cloud proved itself in that sufficient resources were available world-wide such that many well-prepared users could continue operating with relatively little downtime. But because Amazon’s reliability has been incredible, many users were not well-prepared leading to widespread outages. Additionally, some users got caught by unforseen failure modes rendering their failure plans ineffective." seems a little too supportive of Amazon.
That's like saying, The commuter rail service proved itself in that customers who also owned cars were able to drive to work when the train stopped running.
No, it isn't. It is like saying the highway system proved itself when the 101 was closed because people could take 280 instead. If for some reason, you only had planned to ever take 101 and wasn't ready to take an alternate route, yes you got screwed, but that was kind of your own lack of planning for this particular failure mode. (stretched metaphor.)
The metaphors are still flawed, since it's both the route and the destination that changes, which makes things a lot more complex than just taking a different route.
It's more like: Travelers who knew how to quickly get to Terminal X to take an airline that routed flights though <HUB B> instead of <HUB A> got home in time for Christmas. Those who didn't were locked out and slept in the airport.
However, imo an executive summary that starts with "The Amazon cloud proved itself in that sufficient resources were available world-wide such that many well-prepared users could continue operating with relatively little downtime. But because Amazon’s reliability has been incredible, many users were not well-prepared leading to widespread outages. Additionally, some users got caught by unforseen failure modes rendering their failure plans ineffective." seems a little too supportive of Amazon.