AWS reveals more on just what went wrong in major outage

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More details emerge on major AWS outage

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(Image credit: Shutterstock / nikkimeel)
  • Amazon Web Services’ outage was caused by a DNS error
  • Websites were down for 70 minutes, a full recovery took hours
  • Big customers like Netflix, Spotify and Slack might’ve lost millions

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has shared more details on the recent major outage which took down many major websites and apps for nearly a day.

The cloud hosting company's incident was caused by a major outage at AWS’ US-East-1 region, during which a DNS issue prevented services from reaching the DynamoDB API, which is used for low latency, high throughput applications like gaming, IoT and ecommerce.

An internal EC2 subsystem had also failed because of its dependency on DynamoDB, causing further delays.

AWS outage – the details confirmed

“After resolving the DynamoDB DNS issue, services began recovering but we had a subsequent impairment in the internal subsystem of EC2 that is responsible for launching EC2 instances due to its dependency on DynamoDB,” Amazon’s status page confirmed (via The Register).

A throttled approach to restoring systems took place following Amazon’s fix, and by 3:01 PM PT after around half a day, AWS had fully restored things. Sort of.

“Some services such as AWS Config, Redshift, and Connect continue to have a backlog of messages that they will finish processing over the next few hours,” the company explained.

Cybernews Senior Journalist Stefanie Schappert described the hours-long outage as a “perfect storm” for cyberattacks – criminals typically exploit the widespread panic to push their own malicious campaigns with a sense of urgency.

“During major outages, users should avoid clicking on any links in emails, texts and pop-ups claiming to be able to fix the outage,” Schappert explained.

With AWS customers being directly affected by the outage for around 70 minutes, DesignRush estimates that Netflix and Spotify could have lost $4.5 million and $2 million in revenue. Slack’s outage could also have lost parent company Salesforce $1.13 million.

“When more than half of the Fortune 500 depend on the same provider, a single glitch can echo through the economy,” DesignRush’s Anonta Khan noted.

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Craig Hale
Craig Hale

With several years’ experience freelancing in tech and automotive circles, Craig’s specific interests lie in technology that is designed to better our lives, including AI and ML, productivity aids, and smart fitness. He is also passionate about cars and the decarbonisation of personal transportation. As an avid bargain-hunter, you can be sure that any deal Craig finds is top value!

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