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The Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage affected small businesses. Why, because AWS provides servers, storage, networking, remote computing, email, mobile development, and security to businesses of all sizes. And if your small business was using AWS for any of these services, it could have been affected during the outage.
Amazon web services outage
The AWS outage occurred in its region US-EAST-1 at approximately 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday (12/07/21). Nearly four hours later, at 3:34 pm, the company said, “We continue to see an increase in API error rates for several AWS services in the US-EAST-1 region. The root cause of this problem is corruption of several network devices.
Prior to 6:00 p.m., the statement said, “We have mitigated the underlying issue that damaged some network devices in the US-EAST-1 region. Adding: “We are seeing improved availability in most AWS services. “
As of 6:30 p.m., Amazon’s EC2 cloud services were up and running, but other issues remained. The company said, “We are seeing improved availability in most AWS services. We continue to work on a full recovery of all impacted AWS services and API operations. “
Overall, over 20,000 issues have been reported with AWS. And the blackout affected everyone from Google to Netflix, Disney, Ring and Ticketmaster. It also impacted Amazon’s own tools used by warehouse workers and delivery people. These workers could not access the Flex or AtoZ app, preventing them from scanning packages or accessing Amazon delivery routes.
So what caused the blackout? So far, Amazon has not come out and given the exact reason for the outage.
Impact on small businesses
The AWS outage disrupted services in businesses of all sizes. From payment apps and airline reservations, auto dealerships and e-commerce operations, they’ve all been affected. And small businesses run some of those businesses or depend on them for their operations.
This outage and others like it highlight the danger / vulnerability of concentrating Internet infrastructure on a few companies. With fewer businesses dominating critical internet operations with a centralized network infrastructure, outages will impact more people and businesses. And as more and more of the things we use require the Internet, it won’t stop with the businesses feeling the impact. During this blackout, smart devices were also not working, which directly affects consumers.
While large enterprises have the resources for multiple redundancies to protect their websites, data, and applications with different enterprises and data centers, this is not possible for all small businesses. However, even a small business can have Internet redundancy to keep their online presence operational.
Having electronic and physical redundancy with a cellular option and using another backup carrier can protect your small business.
Why is AWS so important?
The reason why AWS is so important is that it controls around a third (32.4% in Q1 2021) of the cloud computing market. For comparison, Google Cloud only holds 9% of the market.
This has allowed AWS to have some of the largest companies in the world as its customers, as well as small businesses and startups. The AWS model allows its customers to pay for what they use; that means they don’t have to buy expensive equipment to store their data and network their resources. Plus, costs are scaled automatically based on usage.
The platform’s features and reliability have made it popular with companies that demand 100% uptime. This includes small businesses that are starting up. From streaming services to e-commerce, AWS is setting the benchmark for cloud computing, even if there are sometimes hiccups.
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