Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s leading cloud computing provider, suffered a major operational outage on Monday in its US East Coast region, causing widespread disruptions for popular global web services and applications.
Widespread Impact
The outage, which began early Monday, affected numerous high-profile platforms that rely on AWS’s infrastructure for computing power, data storage, and networking.
Services reporting disruptions included:
- Social & Media: Snapchat, Zoom, Peloton, Signal, and Slack.
- Gaming: Roblox, Fortnite, and the PlayStation Network.
- Business & Finance: Canva, Duolingo, Coinbase, and data services for the London Stock Exchange Group.
Several companies, including AI search engine Perplexity and design platform Canva (which has over 170 million users), publicly acknowledged that their downtime was directly linked to the AWS failure.
AWS Responds
AWS engineers were immediately engaged to mitigate the issue and determine the root cause. The incident highlights AWS’s critical dominance in the cloud sector; when its systems fail, the ripple effect can cause millions of users across different industries to lose access to their services.
As of the reporting time, there were no confirmed reports of the outage directly affecting users in Nigeria.
