Amazon Web Services outage that hit nearly 150 apps caused by ‘common tech glitch'

Core Insights - An unprecedented outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS) caused nearly 150 major sites and applications to go offline, attributed to a common technical glitch related to the Domain Name System (DNS) [1][4][5] - The outage lasted for 15 hours and affected significant platforms such as Snapchat, Venmo, Slack, Zoom, and Fortnite, highlighting the extensive reliance on AWS for cloud services [5][8] Group 1: Outage Details - The outage originated from an error in the DNS at Amazon's Virginia data center, which is the oldest and largest facility in the region [2][4] - As of 2023, data centers in Virginia consume a quarter of the state's available electricity, indicating the scale of operations in the area [2] - AWS reported that all impacted services were restored by 6 p.m. ET on the same day [5][10] Group 2: Industry Context - This incident is one of the most substantial outages for a cloud provider, as AWS serves millions of businesses, with only Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud operating on a similar scale [8] - Previous DNS outages have affected other providers, including Microsoft Azure and Akamai Edge, indicating that such incidents are not isolated to AWS [11]