Amazon Web Services (AWS) servers are experiencing an extended outage of several hours already. The problems are occurring especially in those found in North America, according to the official Amazon website. A large part of the Internet is stored on AWS servers and this has inevitably caused many websites and services to have problems loading. Now, it is not just a matter of websites, it has also knocked out such peculiar products as vacuum cleaners or doorbells.
The magic of the Internet of things . In recent years we have seen a multitude of devices that have added smart functions by connecting to the Internet. This, although it offers numerous advantages, implies totally or partially depending on the Internet connection to function. It can make the purchased product stop working if the company goes bankrupt for example. There are also numerous added security and privacy risks.
Today’s example is one more that adds to the list. The fall of the Amazon servers leaves unusable gadgets as peculiar as vacuum cleaners. iRobot, creators of the Roomba has already warned a few hours ago that its app connected to vacuum cleaners may be giving problems to some users.
I… can't vacuum… because us-east-1 is down.
— Geoff Belknap (@geoffbelknap) November 25, 2020
Another type of smart product that seems to have been affected is doorbells. Especially the Ring bells from Amazon itself. Some users are reporting that it simply does not work or that it fails to broadcast the stream:
My fucking doorbell doesn't work because AWS us-east-1 is having issues 🤦🏿♂️
— SJP 👨🏿💻 (@SJP1804) November 25, 2020
I LITERALLY can’t SHIT IN MY OWN HOUSE because AWS us-east-1 is down.
— TR▲N§HUᙢȂ̶̱͎̪̣́̾̂͂̓̓̓̔͊̄̏͂̚͝N💀 ̖́ (@transhuman) November 25, 2020
https://twitter.com/HPC_James/status/1331672270721474560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1331672270721474560%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.xataka.com%2Fotros-dispositivos%2Fcaida-parcial-servidores-amazon-ha-provocado-que-aspiradoras-dejen-funcionar
When a third of the Internet depends on AWS.
Amazon through AWS offers one of the largest cloud storage services in the world with about 33% of the market. Microsoft with Azure and Google with Cloud are one of the few services that share the rest of the market. A megastructure like AWS, even if only partially in trouble, leads to serious problems throughout the Internet.
Proof of this are the many companies that are being affected right now. Some of those that have reported problems are 1Password, Adobe, Anchor, Coinbase, Flickr, Roku or Washington Post.
An Amazon AWS outage is currently impacting Adobe Spark so you may be having issues accessing/editing your projects. We are actively working with AWS and will report when the issue has subsided. https://t.co/uoHPf44HjL for current Spark status. We apologize for any inconvenience!
— Adobe Express (@AdobeExpress) November 25, 2020
We're currently experiencing elevated error rates on some backend systems due to an AWS service outage. Trading isn't impacted at this time, but you may experience intermittent delays when filing a support case or accessing other parts of our applications. https://t.co/rR0A4wPKs4
— Coinbase Support (@CoinbaseSupport) November 25, 2020
[status] Identified: Members are receiving an "Oops, something went wrong" error when trying to log in or create an account due to a current AWS outage. We are monitoring the situation and will continue to share information here as it… https://t.co/drGhoVfYMv
— Flickr Help (@FlickrHelp) November 25, 2020
Amazon has not yet indicated what the problem is. The bugs are occurring in the EAST-1 region of the United States and primarily affect the Kinesis Streaming API. According to the company, it will still take a few hours for everything to return to normal: “we hope that full recovery will still take up to a few hours.”