AWS Faces Outage Impacting Major Websites

(CTN News) – On Tuesday afternoon, Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced a widespread outage that affected numerous major websites, causing disruptions to digital publishing operations and online services.

This outage significantly impacted organizations such as the Boston Globe, New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Authority, and Southwest Airlines, among others. In this article, we will delve into the details of the incident, its implications, and the subsequent resolution.

The Outage and its Consequences

The AWS outage had a cascading effect on various websites and online services, resulting in widespread disruptions. Notable organizations like the Boston Globe and the Metropolitan Transit Authority were affected.

The Boston Globe reported via Twitter that their digital publishing operations had been hampered since approximately 2:45 p.m. EDT due to the AWS outage.

Similarly, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority stated on Twitter that its website and app were temporarily unavailable due to the incident.

The transit agency posted service disruption alerts on Twitter to keep passengers informed.

Several news outlets, including The Verge, confirmed that the Amazon Web Services outage also impacted their websites.

Furthermore, Southwest Airlines acknowledged customer reports of issues accessing its website and announced it was actively working with Amazon to address the problems.

The magnitude of the Incident

The extent of the outage was evident from the significant number of reports flooding the outage-tracking site DownDetector. Around 3 p.m. ET, the site registered approximately 12,000 reports of issues accessing AWS services. However, the number of reports gradually decreased as time progressed, indicating a problem resolution.

AWS Response and Recovery

Upon CNN’s request for comment, AWS directed attention to its Service Health dashboard, which provided insights into the situation.

Initially, the dashboard acknowledged “increased error rates and latencies” affecting regional servers at the Northern Virginia hub around 3 p.m. ET.

As the incident progressed, the dashboard began reporting that many AWS services were fully recovered and marked as resolved, signifying progress in the restoration efforts.

Finally, on Tuesday evening at 6:42 p.m. ET, the dashboard declared that the issue had been resolved, and all AWS services were operating normally.