Amazon Web Services Outage Causing Issues Across The Web

If you’ve noticed that some major websites aren’t working, you’re not alone. It’s all due to an Amazon Web Services outage that started earlier today.

Millions of users across the web are experiencing slower than normal load times on their favorite websites due to an Amazon Web Services outage. Some websites are not loading at all. Services like Netflix, Channel Advisor, BigCommerce, and Reddit are either loading very slowly, or not at all. This has thrown the internet into a frenzy as companies scramble to address customer complaints. The issue seems to be isolated to the East Coast, but could be affecting users across the world. This depends on the website, and if it’s hosted on AWS servers.

Luckily, Refined Impact’s hosted partners are not affected by this Amazon Web Services outage. Amazon is currently working on the AWS issues and hopes to have a fix soon.

As of 1:33pm Eastern Time, we saw the following update on the Amazon Web Services outage on Amazon’s Service Health Dashboard:

“Increased Error Rates – Update at 10:33 AM PST: We’re continuing to work to remediate the availability issues for Amazon S3 in US-EAST-1. AWS services and customer applications depending on S3 will continue to experience high error rates as we are actively working to remediate the errors in Amazon S3.”

The Backlash

Users took to Twitter to express their opinions (and outrage) regarding the Amazon Web Services outage. Some users have questioned how much of the internet actually relies on AWS. Judging by the number of affected sites, the answer is ‘quite a bit’.

Today’s @awscloud S3 and Dashboard crash is a good window into how much of the internet relies on #AWS.

— William Lutz (@wmlutz) February 28, 2017

When @AmazonAWS finally fixes the #AmazonS3 problem #AWS pic.twitter.com/CPEoCPKvu3

— Mr. B (@MrBWasHere) February 28, 2017

Throw your stuff in the cloud, they said.

The cloud never goes down, they said.#AWS #Amazon #S3

— david hunegnaw (@hunegnaw) February 28, 2017

We’re continuing to monitor the situation and affected websites.

We’re hoping that the rest of the web is back up and running soon!

About the Author: Sam Lombardi

Sam Lombardi is Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Refined Impact, a fast-growing Digital Marketing Agency with offices in New Jersey, South Carolina, and Florida. With a background in business development and technology, Sam designs and builds solutions that create long-term value for Refined Impact's partners. He is passionate about helping organizations reach their full potential, both physically and digitally, so they have the resources to serve local communities via job creation and philanthropy. In addition to his hands-on experience building both startups and franchises, Sam studied Information Technology and Marketing at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and holds a BS in Business, as well as several Google certifications. It is his unique combination of experience in the corporate and technology sectors that make Sam a valuable asset to Refined Impact and their partners.