Major AWS Outage Disrupts Global Internet Services

A significant Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage crippled thousands of websites and applications worldwide on Monday. The disruption impacted major platforms including Snapchat, Reddit, and Venmo. Services were restored after several hours, but the event highlighted global reliance on cloud infrastructure.

According to Reuters, the outage prevented users from performing everyday digital tasks. It was described as the largest internet disruption since last year’s CrowdStrike incident.

Root Cause and Service Restoration

The problem originated within Amazon’s US-EAST-1 data center cluster in northern Virginia. It was linked to the Domain Name System (DNS), which acts as the internet’s address book. A specific issue with the DynamoDB API prevented applications from connecting properly.

AWS identified the root cause in a subsystem for network load balancers. This issue within the “EC2 internal network” caused a cascading failure. Amazon confirmed all services returned to normal operations by Monday afternoon Pacific Time.

Widespread Impact on Digital Life

The outage’s effects were felt across the digital economy. DownDetector recorded over 11 million user problem reports. Services like Robinhood, Apple Music, and the McDonald’s app were all affected.

Even Amazon’s own products, including Ring doorbells and Alexa devices, experienced failures. The event marks at least the third major outage for the US-EAST-1 cluster in five years. It underscores the concentrated risk of relying on a single cloud provider’s core infrastructure.

The widespread AWS outage serves as a stark reminder of the internet’s centralization. Global digital services remain vulnerable to single points of failure within major cloud platforms.

Info at your fingertips

What caused the AWS outage?

The outage was caused by a DNS failure linked to Amazon’s DynamoDB service. The root issue was within a network load balancer subsystem in the EC2 internal network.

How long did the AWS outage last?

Active disruption lasted for several hours. AWS declared normal operations restored by Monday afternoon, though some services faced message backlogs for a few more hours.

Which major apps were affected?

Snapchat, Reddit, Venmo, Zoom, and Robinhood were among the thousands of services disrupted. Apple Music, Disney+, and Netflix users also reported issues.

Was this the biggest internet outage?

This was reportedly the largest global internet disruption since the CrowdStrike outage in the previous year. It affected a vast number of companies and users simultaneously.

Were Amazon’s own services down?

Yes. Amazon’s consumer products, including Ring doorbell cameras and Alexa-powered smart speakers, were also knocked offline during the incident.

Trusted Sources

Reuters
Associated Press