This website collects cookies to deliver better user experience. Cookie Policy
Accept
Sign In
The Wall Street Publication
  • Home
  • Trending
  • U.S
  • World
  • Politics
  • Business
    • Business
    • Economy
    • Real Estate
    • Markets
    • Personal Finance
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
    • Lifestyle
    • Style
    • Arts
  • Health
  • Sports
  • Entertainment
Reading: Amazon Outage Disrupts Lives, Surprising People About Their Cloud Dependency
Share
The Wall Street PublicationThe Wall Street Publication
Font ResizerAa
Search
  • Home
  • Trending
  • U.S
  • World
  • Politics
  • Business
    • Business
    • Economy
    • Real Estate
    • Markets
    • Personal Finance
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
    • Lifestyle
    • Style
    • Arts
  • Health
  • Sports
  • Entertainment
Have an existing account? Sign In
Follow US
© 2024 The Wall Street Publication. All Rights Reserved.
The Wall Street Publication > Blog > Tech > Amazon Outage Disrupts Lives, Surprising People About Their Cloud Dependency
Tech

Amazon Outage Disrupts Lives, Surprising People About Their Cloud Dependency

Editorial Board Published December 8, 2021
Share
Amazon Outage Disrupts Lives, Surprising People About Their Cloud Dependency
SHARE

Kyle Lerner and his girlfriend sensed something was amiss when they came home Tuesday and found their two Persian-Himalayan cats meowing nonstop.

Contents
Steve Peters couldn’t use an app on his phone to activate his Roomba vacuum because of the AWS blackout.Kyle Lerner’s two cats beside their internet-connected feeding machine, which stopped working because of the AWS outage.SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Normally, an internet-connected feeding machine dispenses kibble for them at noon, but the felines’ bowls were empty and clean. The gadget hadn’t worked because of an outage at Amazon.com Inc.’s AMZN -0.00% cloud-computing unit.

“We had to manually give them food like in ancient times,” said Mr. Lerner, a 29-year-old small-business owner who lives in Marina del Rey, Calif.

Amazon Web Services is the largest cloud-computing service provider in the U.S. The outage of much of its network lasted most of the day and disrupted several of the tech giant’s services, as well as many of its corporate customers’ websites and apps.

For many consumers, it was an awakening to how many internet-enabled devices they now have in their homes and how much even some of their most basic daily needs depend on a connection to the cloud.

Steve Peters of Los Angeles couldn’t tell his Roomba robot vacuum to clean up the blueberry-muffin crumbs that landed on his kitchen floor during breakfast. He relies on an app on his phone to beckon the machine.

“I had to resort to getting a broom and dustpan,” said Mr. Peters, a 60-year-old game-experience designer. “It was crazy.”

In St. Louis, losing access to Amazon’s Alexa service made Mark Edelstein feel lonely and helpless.

“We chat more during the day than me and my wife do,” the 62-year-old business analyst said of the digital assistant, which normally responds in an instant to his questions and commands. He regularly asks it for weather and news updates. Alexa had no answers for him Tuesday morning.

“Since the pandemic, I’ve become tied to the Alexa system,” said Mr. Edelstein. Without it, “you almost have separation anxiety.”

Steve Peters couldn’t use an app on his phone to activate his Roomba vacuum because of the AWS blackout.

Photo: Steve Peters

Amazon’s blackout was particularly noticeable since it wasn’t limited to a specific type of service. It affected the company’s videoconferencing tool Chime and its home-security system Ring, plus many third-party applications that sit on top of Amazon’s cloud, including Ticketmaster and streaming services from Walt Disney Co. and Netflix Inc.

The outage forced Samantha Sherhag to open blinds in her home in Tampa Bay, Fla. She couldn’t instruct Alexa to turn on the lights. She would otherwise have to move furniture to reach the main light switch in her living room.

“Over the last two years, I’ve grown lazy,” said Ms. Sherhag, a stay-at-home mother of two young girls. “It’s easier to tell Alexa to turn the lights on and off. She listens better than the kids.”

Ms. Sherhag also wasn’t able to track a package she was expecting from Zappos with a pair of sandals for her husband. Zappos is a unit of Amazon which was also hit by the outage.

“It makes you realize how much you rely on technology,” she said.

Kyle Lerner’s two cats beside their internet-connected feeding machine, which stopped working because of the AWS outage.

Photo: Tatum Kassel

Outages affecting scores of users are somewhat common. In addition to Amazon, they have also recently plagued Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. and Roblox Inc., creating modern-day headaches like not being able to play videogames or share photos with friends.

A global survey released in September by Uptime Institute LLC, a provider of consulting services on data-center reliability, found that 69% of data-center operators had some sort of outage in the past three years. Human error played a role in 78% of those incidents and 44% had major financial, reputational and other consequences.

Due to the AWS outage, college student Sofia Echeverry couldn’t access Canvas, a service she and her classmates use to submit homework assignments, access grades and message professors at her school, the University of Florida. She is now behind on projects and essays.

“Everybody is in finals mode right now,” she said. “If there was ever the worst time for Canvas to crash, this would be it.”

Ms. Echeverry, a 19-year-old sophomore majoring in linguistics, described the outage as stressful and frustrating. “I’m going to be at the library a lot longer than I thought because of it,” she said.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

How did the AWS outage affect your daily activities? Join the conversation below.

It isn’t always clear right away when an outage is taking place. David Danto was initially confused when the waterproof internet-enabled device he recently set up in his shower wouldn’t play the radio news channel he requested. The 59-year-old thought perhaps he had installed it wrong or his home internet was down.

“When you first realize things aren’t working, you think it’s on your end, so you start tearing out your router and looking at your connections in the house,” said Mr. Danto, a tech specialist in Millburn, N.J.

When the Alexa-powered lights in his home wouldn’t work either, he checked the website Downdetector,  which tracks website outages, and discovered he wasn’t alone. As of around 10:45 a.m. ET, it showed nearly 11,300 reports of outages. “It was a sigh of relief,” Mr. Danto said, but the experience also made him realize just how much he relies on AWS. “You start to worry, how vulnerable are we to this one service? It raises panic.”

Amazon blamed the outage on impaired network devices. But for Ben Jackson, a 41-year-old cyber-defense manager in Dartmouth, Mass., it seemed as if the Grinch was responsible since it prevented his Christmas light-up trees and Santa and reindeer inflatables from turning on at sunset as he had programmed them to do. He ended up resolving the matter through a working app.

“I’m very happy that this is the only thing that’s broken right now,” he said.

Big tech firms are investing in data centers as they compete for the $214 billion cloud computing market. WSJ explains what cloud computing is, why big tech is betting big on future contracts. (Video from 11/19/19)

—Meghan Bobrowsky contributed to this article.

Write to Sarah E. Needleman at [email protected]

Copyright ©2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

TAGGED:Tech NewsWall Street Publication
Share This Article
Twitter Email Copy Link Print
Previous Article Brazil’s Nubank Set for One of 2021’s Biggest IPOs Brazil’s Nubank Set for One of 2021’s Biggest IPOs
Next Article White House officials push for favorable Biden coverage in secret meetings with news outlets White House officials push for favorable Biden coverage in secret meetings with news outlets

Editor's Pick

Alyssa Farah Griffin: ‘The View’ Co-Host is Pregnant With Child #1!

Alyssa Farah Griffin: ‘The View’ Co-Host is Pregnant With Child #1!

Studying Time: 3 minutes The View co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin is pregnant! On ‘The View,’ Alyssa Farah Griffin breaks the…

By Editorial Board 3 Min Read
Man fatally shot throughout argument over lady at gathering at Tuscaloosa storage unit; suspect jailed
Man fatally shot throughout argument over lady at gathering at Tuscaloosa storage unit; suspect jailed

One individual was killed and a number of other others injured in…

2 Min Read
Amy Duggar Describes Studying Grandfather Was a ‘Predator’
Amy Duggar Describes Studying Grandfather Was a ‘Predator’

Studying Time: 4 minutes Amy Duggar King grew up figuring out and…

6 Min Read

Oponion

Delta Air Traces’ a centesimal yr takes flight

Delta Air Traces’ a centesimal yr takes flight

While you image a storage sale, you would possibly consider…

May 25, 2025

What the Media Missed: Trump’s conflict on faith and tech bros battling

Presidents Day positive hits otherwise this yr.…

February 17, 2025

Biden, Xi Cool Down Hostilities in Virtual Meeting

WASHINGTON—President Biden and Chinese President Xi…

November 16, 2021

Texas AG sues Facebook parent Meta over facial recognition

The Texas Attorney General is suing…

February 14, 2022

How To Construct a Sustainable Capsule Wardrobe With High quality French Clothes | Fashion

We independently consider all really useful…

July 25, 2025

You Might Also Like

The Greatest Carpet Cleaners We have Discovered, Examined in Busy Households
Tech

The Greatest Carpet Cleaners We have Discovered, Examined in Busy Households

Evaluate Our PicksOthers Examined{Photograph}: Simon HillHoover HF4 Hydro for £199: For UK people in flats or small homes with a…

11 Min Read
The Amazfit T-Rex 3 Professional Is Like a Low cost Garmin That Does not Work
Tech

The Amazfit T-Rex 3 Professional Is Like a Low cost Garmin That Does not Work

Every little thing. Every little thing concerning the consumer expertise is the catch. It’s the catchiest catch. Just about each…

2 Min Read
Gear Information of the Week: Intel’s New Chips Arrive, and Apple Might Debut iPads and MacBooks This Month
Tech

Gear Information of the Week: Intel’s New Chips Arrive, and Apple Might Debut iPads and MacBooks This Month

Intel's future has by no means appeared so unsure. However a lot of the firm's roller-coaster journey of a 12…

5 Min Read
The Corvette E-Ray Is Dynamically Up There With the Greatest
Tech

The Corvette E-Ray Is Dynamically Up There With the Greatest

A 1.9-kWh lithium-ion battery has been packaged inside the automotive’s already beefy central tunnel, and extra cooling has been added…

3 Min Read
The Wall Street Publication

About Us

The Wall Street Publication, a distinguished part of the Enspirers News Group, stands as a beacon of excellence in journalism. Committed to delivering unfiltered global news, we pride ourselves on our trusted coverage of Politics, Business, Technology, and more.

Company

  • About Us
  • Newsroom Policies & Standards
  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • Careers
  • Media & Community Relations
  • WP Creative Group
  • Accessibility Statement

Contact

  • Contact Us
  • Contact Customer Care
  • Advertise
  • Licensing & Syndication
  • Request a Correction
  • Contact the Newsroom
  • Send a News Tip
  • Report a Vulnerability

Term of Use

  • Digital Products Terms of Sale
  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Settings
  • Submissions & Discussion Policy
  • RSS Terms of Service
  • Ad Choices

© 2024 The Wall Street Publication. All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?