(WTTW News)
Amazon’s cloud computing technology experienced major technical difficulties Tuesday, and brought half the world to a halt — or at least it felt that way to clients and consumers reliant on applications or services such as Alexa, Amazon Prime Video, Ring and Canvas.
As of mid-afternoon, Amazon Web Services was reporting continued “error rates” for multiple services in its eastern U.S. region, with no ETA for full recovery.
Social media had a field day with the outages, with some posters expressing mock rage at their inability to so much as turn off light bulbs without Alexa’s help. Others noted, ominously, how dependent people have unwittingly become on the services of a single company.
Less amused were people attempting to access services such as Canvas, a web-based online learning management system used by universities and institutions. The outage also took out banking call centers and Ring security cameras.
im in bed to take a nap and i can't turn off my bedroom lights because amazon alexa is down
truly a nightmare of the future
— sickIer (Taylor's Version) (@urdum4replying) December 7, 2021
When my Alexa devices and smart lights stop working running to twitter to find out Amazon is down pic.twitter.com/violA0I5Dg
— Adam Ferlando (@AdamBomb_31) December 7, 2021
crazy how amazon went down and half the western internet went with it hmm
— Páll (@_Paulxx) December 7, 2021
Our AWS friends are reporting incremental recovery, but we’re not there yet. To those impacted, we hear you & know this is frustrating! We’re going to keep at it. We’ll thread any updates here with this post. You can check our status page for updates: https://t.co/lC9pFXqWL1
— Canvas LMS (@CanvasLMS) December 7, 2021
We are aware of a service interruption impacting Ring. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience and understanding. Please check for updates here: https://t.co/eIn9C666kV.
— Ring (@ring) December 7, 2021
Due to the widespread Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud outage impacting companies across the US, our call center is currently not able to take calls. Cardmembers are able to fully service their accounts on our website and mobile app. We apologize for any inconvenience. LL
— Ask Barclays Bank US (@AskBarclaysUS) December 7, 2021
A picture of how my day is going with the #aws outage. My pharmacy site is down, some important financial sites, grocery and other daily important things teetering. we probably take for granted. #AWSOutage - Time for an overhaul to better personal Disaster Recovery System #Amazon pic.twitter.com/dlAiGgQ7Dc
— Ralf P. Loserth (@captainsnackbar) December 7, 2021
Contact Patty Wetli: @pattywetli | (773) 509-5623 | [email protected]
