Amazon has resolved a significant outage of its cloud computing service that disrupted internet services worldwide, affecting social media, gaming, food delivery, streaming, and financial platforms. The disruption began in the early hours of Monday, with Amazon Web Services (AWS) reporting a gradual recovery before services returned to normal operations by 6 p.m. ET.
AWS, Amazon’s cloud services unit, offers on-demand computing power and digital services to various entities. The outage impacted social media apps like Snapchat and Reddit, causing worldwide business disruptions. The root cause was an internal subsystem affecting network load balancer health, with most issues originating from the US-EAST-1 Region.
The outage, which affected millions of users globally, highlighted the essential role of AWS in internet infrastructure, according to industry analysts. Numerous companies, including the Toronto Blue Jays, Snapchat, Pinterest, Wealthsimple, and others, confirmed being affected. Notable gaming and financial platforms like Fortnite, Venmo, and Chime also faced service disruptions.
AWS, alongside Google and Microsoft, dominates about 63% of the cloud infrastructures market, emphasizing the reliance on a few global providers for digital services. The outage underscored the interconnected nature of digital services and the potential impact of disruptions on billions of users. Experts noted the complexity of technology and the challenges of pinpointing issues when reliant on a handful of cloud providers. While there were no signs of a cyberattack, speculation arose due to the outage’s scale and impact on various industries.
The AWS outage serves as a reminder of the critical role cloud services play in daily life, with experts likening the internet to a utility like water or electricity. The incident marked the first major internet disruption since the CrowdStrike malfunction last year, emphasizing the significance of cloud services in modern digital infrastructure.