Several services from Amazon Web Services (AWS), the largest cloud infrastructure platform in the world, suffered a global outage this Monday, affecting numerous companies and users in Spain. The failure, originating in one of its data centers in the United States, has caused the interruption of service in a multitude of web pages, applications and video games that depend on its infrastructure.
The first reports on the specialized website DownDetector began to be registered around 08:40, Spanish peninsular time. Since that moment, social networks have been filled with messages from users reporting connectivity problems in a wide range of services.
At 11:27 a.m., the AWS technical team reported that it was “observing significant signs of recovery” after detecting the source of the error and applying measures to mitigate it. Finally, at 1:08 p.m., it reported that “the underlying DNS issue has been completely mitigated and most AWS service operations are operating normally.” However, the multinational warns that some applications “could be limited” while the recovery of the systems is completed.
The interruption has impacted both the company’s own platforms, such as its online store, the Alexa voice assistant and the Prime Video streaming service, and third-party applications. Among the services that have recorded interruptions are design tools such as Canva, educational platforms such as Duolingo, the artificial intelligence search engine Perplexity, the social network Snapchat and popular video games such as Fortnite, Clash Royale or Roblox.
Financial services such as the digital platforms of Banco Santander, BBVA or CaixaBank have also been impacted, while Venmo, a popular mobile payment application in the United States, similar to Bizum, is in turn among those affected.
From its official service status page, AWS has confirmed that the incident has originated in “several AWS services in the US-EAST-1 region”, located in northern Virginia (USA). It is one of Amazon’s largest and oldest locations, so a failure there can lead to a global downfall. According to the updates it has been publishing, it took the multinational about three hours to find the origin of the error, which began shortly before midnight locally.
The “underlying DNS problem”, which the multinational has pointed out as the origin of the outage, is one of the most critical failures of the digital infrastructure. They are the acronym in English for the Domain Name System, which acts in practice as the telephone book of the Internet: it is the component that translates the names of services (such as amazon.com) into the numerical addresses (IP) that machines use to locate each other. When this internal “agenda” failed in the Virginia region, the thousands of services that run on AWS could not communicate with each other, causing a chain collapse that has left the applications inaccessible to the end user.
In parallel with the fall of AWS, Live Nation Spain has reported that it was not possible to purchase tickets for any concert due to a global failure in Ticketmaster’s systems. This company uses AWS services. This Monday, tickets for the new tour of Van Gogh’s Ear or Eric Clapton’s concerts in Spain were scheduled to go on sale.
Tickets for the British artist’s performance have been sold normally, but the Spanish group has preferred to delay the start time. “Due to a massive AWS problem, we are forced to postpone the start of ticket sales for the Van Gogh’s Ear tour, scheduled for 12:00 p.m., until 4:00 p.m. today,” it said on its website.
“This incident has affected the normal operations of the system as well as other systems at a national and international level, preventing us from guaranteeing a stable and safe shopping experience for all users,” the group continued.
Amazon Web Services is the cloud computing division that allows companies, developers and individuals to rent computing resources – such as servers, storage or databases – over the Internet, instead of maintaining them physically. AWS’s large market share means that a failure in its systems has a cascading effect on a significant portion of internet activity.
Payment problems, unrelated to AWS
This Monday, at the same time that AWS services suffered a global outage, there was also a failure in Redsys, the Spanish platform that manages electronic payments and card payment gateways for banks and businesses. This outage began around noon and was resolved a little more than an hour later, but it was not related to the AWS incident.
“This is an isolated incident, not linked to any other breakdown or external factors that occurred today, which has limitedly affected some payment operations during the period of interruption,” Redsys emphasized in a statement. The company emphasizes that the drop has been “temporary and partial”, not affecting all users.
“Redsys regrets the inconvenience that this situation may have caused to its clients, financial institutions and businesses, and appreciates their understanding and collaboration,” the platform concluded.
Source: www.eldiario.es
