Massive Amazon cloud outage resolved after disrupting internet use worldwide

Amazon says a massive outage of its cloud computing service has been resolved as of Monday evening after a problem disrupted internet use around the world taking down a broad range of online services including social media gaming food delivery streaming and financial platformsThe allday disruption and the ensuing exasperation it caused served as the latest reminder that 21st century society is increasingly dependent on just a handful of companies for much of its internet technology which seems to work reliably until it suddenly breaks downAbout three hours after the outage began early Monday morning Amazon Web Services said it was starting to recover but it was not until 6 pm Services returned to normal operations Amazon said on its AWS health website where it tracks outagesAWS provides behindthescenes cloud computing infrastructure to some of the worlds biggest organisations Its customers include government departments universities and businesses including The Associated Press Cybersecurity expert Mike Chapple said a slow and bumpy recovery process is entirely normalAs engineers roll out fixes across the cloud computing infrastructure the process could trigger smaller disruptions he said Its similar to what happens after a largescale power outage While a citys power is coming back online neighbourhoods may see intermittent glitches as crews finish the repairs said Chapple an information technology professor at the University of Notre Dames Mendoza College of BusinessAmazon blames domain name systemAmazon pinned the outage on issues related to its domain name system that converts web addresses into IP addresses which are numeric designations that identify locations on the internet Those addresses allow websites and apps to load on internetconnected devicesDownDetector a website that tracks online outages said in a Facebook post that it received over 11 million user reports of problems at more than 2500 companies Users reported trouble with the social media site Snapchat the Roblox and Fortnite video games the online broker Robinhood and the McDonalds app as well as Netflix Disney and many other servicesThe cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and the Signal chat app both said on X that they were experiencing trouble related to the outage Amazons own services were also affected Users of the companys Ring doorbell cameras and Alexapowered smart speakers reported that they were not working while others said they were unable to access the Amazon website or download books to their KindleMany college and K12 students were unable to submit or access their homework or course materials Monday because the AWS outage knocked out Canvas a widely used educational platform I currently cant grade any online assignments and my students cant access their online materials because of the outages effect on learningmanagement systems said Damien P Williams a professor of philosophy and data science at the University of North Carolina at CharlotteThe exact number of schools impacted was not immediately known but Canvas says on its website it is used by 50 per cent of college and university students in North America including all Ivy League schools in the US Ohio State University informed its 70000 students at all six campuses by email Monday morning that online course materials might be inaccessible due to the outage and that students should connect with their instructors for any alternative plans By late afternoon the system was still down said spokesman Benjamin JohnsonRecord of past outagesThis is not the first time issues with Amazon cloud services have caused widespread disruptions Many popular internet services were affected by a brief outage in 2023 AWSs longest outage in recent history occurred in late 2021 when a wide range of companies from airlines and auto dealerships to payment apps and video streaming services were affected for more than five hours Outages also happened in 2020 and 2017The first signs of trouble emerged at around 311 am Eastern time when AWS reported on its health dashboard that it was investigating increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS services in the USEAST1 Region Later the company reported that there were significant error rates and that engineers were actively working on the problemAround 6 am Eastern time the company reported seeing recovery across most of the affected services and said it was seeking a full resolution As of midday AWS was still working to resolve the trouble Sixtyfour internal AWS services were affected the company saidJust a few companies provide most internet infrastructureBecause much of the world now relies on three or four companies to provide the underlying infrastructure of the internet when theres an issue like this it can be really impactful across many online services said Patrick Burgess a cybersecurity expert at UKbased BCS The Chartered Institute for ITThe world now runs on the cloud Burgess said And because so much of the online worlds plumbing is underpinned by so few companies when something goes wrong its very difficult for users to pinpoint what is happening because we dont see Amazon we just see Snapchat or Roblox Burgess saidThe good news is that this kind of issue is usually relatively fast to resolve and theres no indication that it was caused by a cyberattack Burgess said This looks like a good oldfashioned technology issue Somethings gone wrong and it will be fixed by Amazon he said There are wellestablished processes to deal with outages at AWS as well as rivals Google and Microsoft Burgess said adding that such outages are usually over in hours rather than daysThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever