Amazon Web Services (AWS), the leading cloud service provider, experienced a brief but notable outage on June 13, causing service disruptions for numerous organizations. While the incident impacted major news organizations and websites, the Ethereum network remained resilient, unaffected by the disruption despite its heavy reliance on AWS for hosting its infrastructure.
AWS first reported increased error rates and latencies in parts of the United States at 12:08 pm PDT, initiating investigations into the issue. The outage lasted for approximately three hours, leaving mainstream news organizations, including the Associated Press, unable to publish articles during that time.
Ethereum network unscathed despite heavy reliance on AWS hosting
Evan Van Ness, an advocate for the Ethereum network, observed the situation and confirmed that the outage had no impact on Ethereum’s operations. This is noteworthy, considering that a significant portion of the Ethereum network, about 64.5%, according to Ethernodes, relies on Amazon hosting providers. Van Ness also pointed out that if the outage had occurred in Europe, the consequences could have been more significant due to the amount of Ether (ETH) staked on Lido, which currently stands at around 7.1 million ETH, or approximately 35% of the total. The incident raised concerns about the level of centralization within the Ethereum ecosystem, given its heavy reliance on infrastructure providers like AWS and the liquid staking platform Lido.
Amazon restores AWS services
Around 20 minutes after discovering the issue, AWS identified the root cause as a problem with AWS Lambda, a service that allows customers to run code for different applications. After thorough investigation and resolution efforts, AWS announced that the issue had been resolved at 3.37 PM PDT, restoring normal operations.
While Tuesday’s outage appeared to be smaller in scale and duration compared to a major disruption AWS experienced in 2017, affecting its data-hosting service known as Amazon S3, it highlighted the vulnerability of centralized systems and the potential consequences of disruptions within the cloud infrastructure space.
During the outage, social media platforms were flooded with frustrated user responses, expressing their inconveniences caused by the disruption. Reports emerged of Amazon Music and Alexa also being impacted, further emphasizing the wide-ranging reach of the incident.
Delta Air Lines acknowledged issues with its website during the outage but did not confirm a direct link to the AWS disruption. Meanwhile, United Airlines stated that its operations experienced minimal impact and quickly returned to normal.
The incident serves as a reminder of the importance of diversification and resilience strategies in the face of cloud infrastructure disruptions. As companies increasingly rely on cloud services, incidents like these highlight the need to develop redundancy and decentralization measures to mitigate potential disruptions and ensure continuous operations.
