AWS Back Online - But What Went Wrong With Amazon’s Cloud Service?

Amazon.com’s cloud service returned to normal operations on Monday afternoon, the company announced, following an internet outage that disrupted thousands of websites worldwide, including popular platforms

such as Snapchat and Reddit. However, Amazon (AMZN.O) noted that some AWS services are still processing a backlog of messages, which could take several hours to clear.AWS provides cloud hosting for applications and computing processes used by companies globally. The outage left workers from London to Tokyo offline and disrupted everyday tasks, such as paying hairdressers or changing airline tickets. On Monday afternoon, users reported ongoing issues with services including the digital wallet Venmo and video conferencing platform Zoom.It was the largest internet disruption since last year’s CrowdStrike outage, which had crippled technology systems in hospitals, banks and airports, underscoring the fragility of the world’s interconnected digital infrastructure. It was at least the third time in five years that AWS's northern Virginia cluster, known as US-EAST-1, contributed to a major internet meltdown.Also Read: Which Companies Are Down Following AWS Outage and How Much Is It Costing Them? However, there is no clarity on what was the root cause. The issues originated from the Domain Name System (DNS), which blocked applications from locating the correct address for AWS’s DynamoDB API, a cloud database essential for storing user information and other critical data.Earlier, AWS stated that the outage was caused by an underlying subsystem responsible for monitoring the health of its network load balancers, which distribute traffic across multiple servers.The issue, AWS said, originated from within the "EC2 internal network", Amazon's "Elastic Compute Cloud" service, which provides on-demand cloud capacity within AWS.Shortly after 3 pm PT (2200 GMT), Amazon said, "all AWS services returned to normal operations. Some services such as AWS Config, Redshift, and Connect continue to have a backlog of messages that they will finish processing over the next few hours."AWS offers computing power, data storage and a range of digital services to companies, governments and individuals. It is the world’s largest cloud provider, followed by Microsoft’s Azure and Google Cloud from Alphabet.(With inputs from Reuters)