Kristina Roberts
Amazon’s cloud service, AWS, faced a massive global outage that disrupted many popular websites and apps, from Snapchat to Zoom. The issue started in the United States and spread worldwide, affecting millions of users. After hours of instability, Amazon announced the service had finally returned to normal operations.
For a few tense hours on Monday, much of the internet seemed to stop working. Amazon Web Services (AWS), one of the world’s biggest cloud computing platforms, suffered a major outage that caused thousands of websites and apps across the world to crash or slow down. From large companies to small businesses, and even ordinary users trying to send payments or attend online meetings, many people were left frustrated and confused.
By Monday afternoon, Amazon said its AWS cloud service had returned to normal. However, it also mentioned that some of its systems still had “a backlog of messages” that would take a few more hours to completely clear. This meant that while most services were back, a few users might still face small delays before everything worked perfectly again.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is like the “engine” that keeps a big part of the internet running. Many popular apps and websites, such as Snapchat, Reddit, Venmo, and Zoom, rely on AWS to store data, host websites, and manage online traffic. So when AWS goes down, the effect is felt almost everywhere. The outage caused disruptions in cities from London to Tokyo. Workers couldn’t log in to their systems, people couldn’t make online payments, and some even struggled to manage their flight bookings or other digital services.
This recent breakdown was one of the biggest internet disruptions since last year’s CrowdStrike software failure that had affected hospitals, airports, and banks. Once again, it reminded everyone how deeply connected and dependent our world has become on cloud services. Just one technical problem in one location can create a chain reaction that reaches across continents within minutes.
Interestingly, this wasn’t the first time Amazon’s US-East-1 data center in Northern Virginia had caused trouble. In fact, it has been linked to several similar outages in the past five years. Despite being a key part of AWS’s network, this specific site has earned a reputation for being somewhat unreliable. Many experts and users are now asking why the same region keeps facing issues, especially since millions of businesses depend on its smooth functioning.
Amazon did not provide detailed answers about why the Virginia data center continues to be a weak point. However, it did share some technical explanations about what went wrong this time. The issue, according to Amazon, began with a system related to the “Domain Name System” (DNS). The DNS is like the internet’s address book—it helps apps and websites find the right servers they need to connect to. When the DNS fails, websites and apps can’t find the correct digital “address,” and as a result, users see error messages or can’t load pages at all.
In this case, the DNS problem stopped AWS’s DynamoDB API—a tool used by many websites to store important user information—from being accessed properly. This meant that even if the apps were running fine, they couldn’t connect to the database where their information was kept.
Earlier in the day, AWS engineers had identified that the real cause of the outage was a problem in the system that monitors the “health” of its network load balancers. These load balancers are devices that spread internet traffic across several servers so that no single server becomes overloaded. Amazon explained that the issue began inside the “EC2 internal network,” which is part of its “Elastic Compute Cloud” service. EC2 allows companies to rent computing power from Amazon on demand, which they use to run their websites and apps.
After several hours of fixing and testing, Amazon announced shortly after 3 p.m. Pacific Time (which is 10 p.m. GMT) that “all AWS services returned to normal operations.” The company added that some services, like AWS Config, Redshift, and Connect, still had leftover messages in their system that would take a few more hours to finish processing.
Many experts said this incident is a wake-up call for developers and businesses that depend heavily on one cloud provider. Ken Birman, a computer science professor at Cornell University, shared his thoughts on the matter. He said, “Software developers need to build better fault tolerance.” He explained that AWS actually provides tools that developers can use to protect their apps if one data center goes down. However, not everyone uses these tools effectively. Birman also mentioned that companies can set up backups with other cloud providers to make sure their systems keep running, even if AWS faces problems.
The outage showed that even the biggest tech companies are not immune to technical errors. As more and more businesses move their work online, they are also becoming more vulnerable to single points of failure like this one. Experts believe that the best way to prevent such chaos in the future is through diversification—using multiple cloud providers or having backup systems ready.
For the millions of users affected by the outage, the disruption was more than just an inconvenience. Many small businesses lost hours of sales, while professionals missed meetings and deadlines. Even social platforms like Reddit and Snapchat saw interruptions that affected millions of their daily users. Some people took to social media to vent their frustrations, joking that the internet “had taken a nap.” Others used the opportunity to remind companies about the importance of digital resilience.
For Amazon, this event once again put the spotlight on AWS’s reliability. AWS is a crucial part of Amazon’s global business and one of its most profitable divisions. Each time an outage happens, it raises questions about how the company plans to improve its systems and communication with customers. Although Amazon moved quickly to fix the issue and reassure the public, many believe it must do more to prevent repeated failures in the same region.
Despite the frustration it caused, the outage also served as an important reminder of how fragile the internet can be. The modern world depends heavily on cloud computing for nearly every aspect of daily life—from online shopping and banking to healthcare and education. Just one technical fault can create a domino effect that reaches millions within minutes.
As the dust settled and systems gradually recovered, many were thankful that the situation didn’t last longer or cause permanent damage. But it also left behind a lingering question: how prepared are we for the next big internet outage? With technology advancing faster than ever, the need for strong, fault-tolerant systems has never been more important.
In the end, Amazon’s quick response helped restore order, but it also highlighted a growing challenge in our digital age. When so much of our world runs on invisible networks and shared servers, even a tiny glitch in one part of the system can feel like a global storm. The lesson from this incident is clear—technology may be powerful, but it still needs careful backup and constant watchfulness to keep the digital world running smoothly.
