What caused the AWS outage and has Amazon fully restored all services? Here’s what happened

On mon, oct 20, Amazon Web Services (AWS), a cloud computing giant, faced a major outage, which disrupted the Internet services. As reported by Mashable, the problems began in the early hours, recovered for some time, but repeated during midday. The outage affected platforms like Snapchat, United Airlines, McDonald’s, Venmo, Fortnite, Disney+, and more.

Amazon updated users throughout the day, reporting steady improvements. By 3:01 p.m. PT (6:01 p.m. ET), all AWS services had returned to normal operations, though some, including AWS Config, Redshift, and Amazon Connect, were still clearing backlogs of messages.

Also read: AWS outage brings down half the internet for hours. Here's what happened

The outage was traced to a Domain Name System (DNS) error at AWS’s northern Virginia data center, its oldest and largest facility. DNS acts like a map, translating website names into IP addresses. When AWS lost this mapping, apps temporarily could not access their data. In conversation with CNN, Mike Chapple, IT professor at the University of Notre Dame, described it as large portions of the internet suffering “temporary amnesia.”

Later in the day, AWS faced network connectivity issues due to an internal subsystem that monitors network load balancers. This affected services like DynamoDB, SQS, and Lambda. Experts said such post-fix issues are normal for large IT systems as engineers gradually restore stability, as per Amazon's recent update.

AWS powers roughly a third of the internet, providing computing, storage, and database management for millions of businesses. The outage highlighted how dependent the online world is on a single provider. Alternatives like Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud exist, but cannot match AWS’s scale, as per BBC.

According to The Guardian, Amazon has mitigated the DNS problem, and most AWS services are operating normally. Some users may still experience temporary errors while backlogs clear. Dr. Corinne Cath-Speth, head of digital human rights organization Article 19, say the incident underscores the fragile nature of the internet’s backbone and the need for “diversification in cloud computing.”

The outage was caused by a Domain Name System (DNS) error at AWS’s northern Virginia data center, which temporarily stopped services from connecting to their data.

Many popular services were affected, including Snapchat, Venmo, Fortnite, Disney+, United Airlines, McDonald’s, and Amazon services like Prime and Alexa.

Most AWS services are now operating normally, but some services like AWS Config, Redshift, and Connect are still processing backlogs. Users may experience temporary errors as the system fully stabilizes.

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