While the article doesn't answer this, it does explain how they manage to run a database on AWS without depending on EBS: their database isn't hosted by Amazon at all. "...the exact types of data that would have potentially been disabled by the EBS meltdown don’t actually live at AWS at all – it all still lives in our own datacenters, where we can provide predictable performance." So, while the actual solution they're using might be of interest, it wouldn't say much about how to host a database in AWS without relying on EBS.