Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud computing division of Amazon, suffered a significant service disruption on Monday, crippling access to several major digital platforms and applications worldwide, including Snapchat, Canva, Zoom, and Roblox.
According to a statement from the company, the outage originated from its US East Coast region, one of its largest operational zones. AWS explained that the disruption stemmed from an operational issue that affected multiple services and data centres, resulting in widespread downtime for numerous websites and apps dependent on its cloud infrastructure.
“Engineers were immediately engaged and are actively working on both mitigating the issue and fully understanding the root cause,” AWS said in an update posted on its service dashboard.
Data from Downdetector.com, a website that tracks online service interruptions, revealed that the outage impacted a range of high-profile platforms such as Snapchat, Zoom, Roblox, Clash Royale, MyFitnessPal, Life360, Fortnite, Canva, Duolingo, Signal, Slack, and Peloton.
Other major organisations affected include Coinbase, Epic Games, PlayStation Network, and the London Stock Exchange Group’s data services.
Confirming the link between AWS and the downtime, Aravind Srinivas, CEO of AI-powered search engine Perplexity, said on X (formerly Twitter):
“Perplexity is down right now. The root cause is an AWS issue. We’re working on resolving it.”
Similarly, Canva, which serves over 170 million monthly users globally, acknowledged the disruption on its official X page, stating:
“Our cloud provider is currently experiencing problems. It’s not the experience we want for you, and we’re working closely with them to help re-establish service. Thanks for your patience and understanding as we work to bring things back to normal.”
The company advised users to monitor canvastatus.com for updates.
As of the time of filing this report, there were no confirmed cases of the outage affecting Nigerian users.
Amazon Web Services remains the world’s leading cloud-computing provider, ahead of Microsoft’s Azure and Google Cloud. Its systems power vast segments of the digital economy — from social media and gaming to financial services and government operations.
AWS delivers on-demand computing power, data storage, networking, analytics, and artificial intelligence solutions over the internet, enabling companies to avoid the high costs of maintaining physical data centres.
Because of its widespread integration into modern digital infrastructure, even a brief disruption at AWS can send shockwaves across multiple industries and regions.
While the full scale of Monday’s outage remains unclear, preliminary reports indicate that millions of users globally experienced interruptions in accessing essential online services.
, the cloud computing division of Amazon, suffered a significant service disruption on Monday, ...){kind=link}