Posted on 10/20/2025 11:29:47 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has had a bad day.
That's how the boss of another big US tech firm Cloudflare put it – probably feeling very relieved that today's outage, hitting over 1,000 companies and affecting millions of internet users, had nothing to do with him.
The places hit by the outage vary significantly. It took out major social media platforms like Snapchat and Reddit, banks like Lloyds and Halifax, and games like Roblox and Fortnite.
AWS is a US giant with a large global footprint, having positioned itself as the backbone of the internet.
It provides tools and computers which enable around a third of the internet to work, it offers storage space and database management, it saves firms from having to maintain their own costly set-ups, and it also connects traffic to those platforms.
That's how it sells its services: let us look after your business's computing needs for you.
But today something very mundane went very wrong: a common kind of outage known as a Domain Name System (DNS) error.
People who work in the tech industry will be rolling their eyes right now.
This common error can cause a lot of havoc.
"It's always DNS!" is something I hear a lot.
When someone taps an app or clicks a link, their device is essentially sending a request to be connected to that service.
DNS is supposed to act like a map, and today AWS lost its bearings – platforms like Snapchat, Canva and HMRC were all still there but it couldn't see where they were to direct traffic to them.
These errors happen for a number of reasons.
Usually it's a maintenance issue or a server failure. Sometimes that's human error, someone misconfiguring something somewhere, or in extreme cases a cyber attack - although there's no...
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Sole sourcing in anything is such a silly notion. There is a reason we mere mortals have two of some things, so when a part fails..... So past time to make smaller and more nodular / modular, with workarounds a plenty. Big anything is a problem waiting to happen.
“Kill switch” test...
>having positioned itself as the backbone of the internet.
It’s also the Achilles heel
Microsoft up almost $4 a share at this point. But percentage wise, Amazon is doing even better on this news.
Can’t access any of the online courses I teach, nor can my students or my administrators. Canvas (the online management system most used by colleges for online courses) is down nationwide it seems.
I’m trying to find someone to sell me a 5g backup for my fiber connection. So far, no one will offer it to me.
I do know that if the DNS Root Server process ever got fully corrupted it would bring the entire Internet down in short order.
In this particular case, I would have to know more about how the DNS error occurred and how it occurred, before I would buy into the idea that DNS errors caused such a major internet outage.
Did someone fat finger a configuration, did someone deliberately sabotage the system, etc.
>> DNS
sure
two waves of outages 8 hours apart
My company is being hit by this.
I warned them.
I got knocked off yesterday and couldn’t get back on still up to this a.m. “DNS error. Before I called, knowing it would be the automated call nightmare, I tried the old ‘unplug the modem for a minute,’ even though it wasn’t suggested by the troubleshooter.
It worked. Relief sigh because it’s cold with typhoon winds outside and I needed an excuse...
AMZ op again. Just looked to see when Daisy’s new cat bed is arriving,
This was the problem... Tried accessing my credit card APP earlier today... It told me I was entering the incorrect password... But I was entering the correct one... Hmm... It eventually worked, but somebody is obviously screwing with a lot of people.
Probably forget to increment the version number in the config file. I always thought that was silly.
I;ve been on AMZ since Bezos was just selling books. Don’t recall AMZ being down before, and I get several deliveries each week. Cat bed and maple syrup arriving today. “Left carrier facility”.
AWS has many data centers. When one fails, the intent is to send traffic to a different data center. Eg is Virginia fails, send the traffic to Arizona.
For this did not to happen does it mean that the switch failed that determines to which data center to send the traffic?
AWS has many data centers. When one fails, the intent is to send traffic to a different data center. Eg is Virginia fails, send the traffic to Arizona.
For this did not to happen does it mean that the switch failed that determines to which data center to send the traffic?
AWS has many data centers. When one fails, the intent is to send traffic to a different data center. Eg is Virginia fails, send the traffic to Arizona.
For this did not to happen does it mean that the switch failed that determines to which data center to send the traffic?
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