The Global AWS Outage Is Over, but There’s Still Cause for Concern.
If you experienced difficulties accessing websites and services early Monday morning, you’re not alone. In fact, problems occurred across the globe. For a short time, a global outage disrupted access to numerous websites and services, from Facebook to Fortnite .
The problem arose because of Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon product that offers cloud hosting for a huge number of websites and businesses. If you use online products, chances are many of them use AWS. So, when AWS goes down, these websites and services also go down.
These include social media platforms like Facebook and Snapchat; retailers and restaurants like Amazon, AT&T, and McDonald’s; streaming services like Prime Video, Hulu, and Disney+; messaging apps like Signal; games like Fortnite , Roblox , and Pokémon ; cryptocurrency platforms like Coinbase; and media organizations like The New York Times . Even services not directly linked to AWS appear to have experienced difficulties in the past 12 hours. This particularly affects Apple’s online services, such as Apple TV, Apple Music, and the App Store.
Amazon reports that the outage was caused by an issue with one of its core database products. AWS first reported an issue at 12:11 AM PT (3:11 AM ET), noting “increased errors and latency,” particularly in services located around the center of the US-East-1 region. After several updates, AWS confirmed the discovery of a “potential root cause” at 2:01 AM PT. By 2:22 AM PT, the company had initiated initial mitigation efforts and was seeing “initial signs of recovery.” Five minutes later, they reported “significant signs of recovery.” By 3:35 AM PT, AWS reported that the underlying issue had been resolved and most operations were now functioning normally, although some requests may be throttled and some services may experience latency.
This issue highlights the fragility of the modern internet and its services: when so many companies rely on the same cloud hosting provider, any critical issues with that cloud hosting service could take down a huge number of websites and services.
At this point, the internet overall appears to be back to normal—just in time for everyone on the East Coast to get back to work.