'Significant signs of recovery' hours after major internet outage

The internet appears to be recovering after a major outage knocked out thousands of websites, including Amazon, Snapchat, Reddit and several banks.

Downdetector, a website that tracks complaints about outages, showed thousands of problems on Monday morning.

The issue originates from Amazon Web Services (AWS), which describes itself as “the world’s most comprehensive” cloud service.

Internet outage – as it happened

It offers companies a virtual backbone, giving them access to servers, databases and storage without having to build their own infrastructure.

Millions of businesses are thought to use AWS and everything from Amazon’s Alexa to the Bank of Scotland to crypto company Coinbase, Duolingo, Fortnite, Halifax, HMRC, Lloyds Bank, Roblox and more were affected by this morning’s issue.

Why has a problem with one company caused so many issues?

Amazon is the cloud provider for so many companies that when it sneezes, the internet catches a cold.

Despite the name, the cloud is really just a collection of data centres – that is, a collection of computers stored in warehouses.

The problem here is apparently a DNS issue related to Amazon’s data centres in North Virginia.

DNS is the address book for the internet so this means that Amazon has a connection problem.

The data centre itself might be fine, but all those apps and websites can’t find it.

It’s like a postman trying to post a letter when the address has rubbed off.

The fact that this is happening in Amazon’s largest data centre complex makes the ripples even bigger.

For various reasons – cheap electricity, proximity to Washington DC, access to undersea cables – North Virginia has become a global centre for cloud storage, so an issue there has the capacity to affect anyone who depends on the internet.

These days, as we’re seeing, that’s almost everyone.

Read more: What’s affected by internet…

What's Your Reaction?