The digital universe collectively breathed a cautious sigh of relief today as Amazon Web Services (AWS) said it has fixed the fault behind a global outage that took down thousands of websites and apps.
The cloud giant confirmed that systems are stabilising but warned that a full recovery will take time while it clears a backlog of requests.
The disruption rippled across the digital world, hitting major names such as Snapchat, Duolingo, Zoom and Roblox, alongside Lloyds and Halifax banks, HMRC, and the UK’s National Rail service.
According to Downdetector, more than 6.5 million outage reports have been logged worldwide, affecting over 1,000 companies.
AWS traced the issue to servers in Virginia, a hub so central to its infrastructure that when it falters, much of the internet follows. The company says “significant signs of recovery” are already visible, with most systems now responding normally.
For users and businesses alike, the incident is a reminder of how deeply entwined AWS is with daily online life, and how one data centre glitch can momentarily bring the digital world to its knees.
Why is AWS so important?
AWS is crucial because it provides the cloud infrastructure that powers much of the modern internet.
Instead of running their own servers, companies large and small rent computing power, storage, and databases from AWS, allowing them to operate websites, apps, and digital services efficiently and at scale.
It’s essentially the invisible backbone behind countless online platforms.
Streaming services, banks, retailers, social media apps, government systems, and even gaming networks rely on AWS to handle data, run applications, and manage online transactions.
When AWS goes down, those services lose access to the servers and tools they depend on, leading to widespread outages like the one seen today.
Its dominance also matters: AWS controls roughly a third of the global cloud market, far ahead of rivals like Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
That makes it both indispensable... and, at times, a single point of failure for much of the web.