Core Insights - Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced a significant outage lasting approximately 15 hours, affecting a wide range of internet services and highlighting the dependency of the internet on AWS operations [1][4] - AWS accounts for about one-third of the cloud market, providing essential services such as data storage and computing power, which are critical for numerous companies across various sectors [2][5] - The outage was attributed to a malfunction in a digital directory for a key database service, which caused cascading failures across multiple systems [5][6] Impact on Services - The disruption impacted numerous high-profile companies, including financial services like Venmo and Robinhood, entertainment services from Apple, and software firms such as Zoom and Salesforce [2][4] - Even Amazon's own services, including Alexa and Ring, were affected, indicating the widespread nature of the outage [4][6] - The incident is considered one of the worst for AWS since a major disruption in December 2021, raising concerns about the increasing interdependence on AWS [4][6] Technical Details - AWS identified and resolved the underlying issue by early Monday, but the outage also affected other subsystems necessary for launching new rented servers [5][6] - The interconnected nature of technology systems means that failures at one company can lead to significant impacts across the global economy, as seen in past incidents [6][7] - Previous outages, including one in 2021, have caused extensive disruptions across various industries, demonstrating the potential for cascading effects from cloud service failures [7][8]

Amazon Web Services, the world’s largest cloud provider, suffered a widespread disruption on Monday morning that degraded services for several companies, including artificial intelligence company Perplexity and the Coinbase and Robinhood financial platforms.AWS found a problem with a regional gateway on the US East Coast that’s causing the disruption and is working on “multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery,” the Amazon.com Inc. company said on the AWS health dashboard. User complaints began spiking ...