Major apps and websites experience outages linked to Amazon web services
The outage underscores the vital role of cloud infrastructure in powering apps, websites, and online services worldwide, as well as the potential cascading effects when a major provider encounters technical problems.
Many of the world’s most popular apps and websites experienced sudden disruptions on Monday.
The internet outage has affected several popular apps, websites, and UK banks. Platforms including Snapchat, Wordle, Fortnite, Duolingo, and Canva experienced interruptions, while customers of Lloyds, Halifax, and Bank of Scotland reported being unable to access online banking, according to tracking site Down Detector.
The disruption began around 8:00 a.m. UK time. AWS, the largest provider of cloud infrastructure services, acknowledged the issue on its service status page, saying engineers are actively mitigating the problem while investigating the root cause, according to the ‘Independent’
The problems have been linked to Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provides the infrastructure for much of the internet. AWS acknowledged experiencing “increased error rates” and delays across multiple services on its service status page, affecting a wide range of online applications.
AWS provides cloud computing and internet infrastructure that allows companies to rent servers and computing resources rather than building their own data centers. This makes AWS a backbone of the modern internet: problems at the company can ripple across multiple services, even if they have no direct connection to Amazon.
Founded in 2006, AWS has grown into the world’s largest cloud services provider, generating $108 billion in revenue last year and contributing the majority of Amazon’s profits. It competes with Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, but remains the dominant player in the industry.
The outage underscores the vital role of cloud infrastructure in powering apps, websites, and online services worldwide, as well as the potential cascading effects when a major provider encounters technical problems.
