2nd UPDATE with company comment: As the business day ended on the West Coast, Amazon Web Services reported significant progress in trying to fix a lengthy outage, but said some issues remained.
In an online update at 7:35 p.m. ET, AWS said many of the most serious glitches had been repaired, but “we are now working towards recovery of any impaired services.” In a previous series of updates, the company said it had “mitigated the underlying issue” that caused many streaming platforms and websites to go dark in several parts of the country.
UPDATED with additional company comment: Amazon Web Services has posted another update on an hours-long outage, but it’s not the news many customers and users hoped to hear.
“We continue to experience increased API error rates for multiple AWS Services in the US-EAST-1 Region,” the company said at 3:34 p.m. ET. “The root cause of this issue is an impairment of several network devices. We continue to work toward mitigation, and are actively working on a number of different mitigation and resolution actions. While we have observed some early signs of recovery, we do not have an ETA for full recovery.”
The outage has prevented access to a number of websites and streaming services, including Disney+, in parts of the U.S.
Investors didn’t seem the least bit fazed by the situation, with Amazon shares rising almost 3% to close at $3,523.29.
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A large swath of websites and streaming services were knocked offline this morning by an outage at Amazon Web Services.
When contacted by Deadline, an AWS rep referred questions to a status page, which listed “increased error rates” in numerous parts of AWS. “We are experiencing API and console issues in the US-EAST-1 Region,” according to a statement on the status page. “We have identified root cause and we are actively working towards recovery. This issue is affecting the global console landing page, which is also hosted in US-EAST-1.”
Major streaming outlets Netflix and Disney+ run on AWS and have seen service interrupted for some subscribers. The outage also affected the UBS Technology Media and Telecommunications conference, which is being held virtually this week. A keynote session at noon ET with Charter Communications CEO Tom Rutledge was rescheduled for Wednesday. The Associated Press was also among the media outlets affected by the AWS issues.
Reports of AWS issues first surfaced in the mid-morning today, Eastern time. According to the website Down Detector, reports about AWS peaked at around 11 a.m. ET and then declined significantly in the 90 minutes after that. In addition to the Eastern Seaboard, there were reports coming in from cities like Atlanta and LA.
Amazon Web Services has experienced trouble before, most recently in November 2020.
The web services operation has been a key element in Amazon’s rise to dominance as a tech power. Andy Jassy ran AWS en route to becoming CEO of all of Amazon earlier this year.
In addition to the many third-party clients of AWS, many of Amazon’s own offerings, like its Ring smart doorbell system, Alexa voice recognition and Prime Video have also encountered snags.