Amazon.com Annual Cloud Computing Conference Attendees
Salvador Rodriguez | Reuters
Amazon’s cloud computing unit was hit by an outage on Tuesday that resulted in the shutdown of some websites and services.
An opinion on the Amazon Web Services status page said it was having issues with some APIs and the AWS Management Console. The issues impact the main AWS US-East-1 region hosted in Northern Virginia, so not all users may experience outages.
The outage began around 11:00 a.m. EST. On Tuesday evening, AWS said in an updated advisory that many of the underlying issues that caused the outage have been mitigated.
All issues affecting its popular EC2 cloud service were resolved by 6:30 p.m. EST, while other services were still experiencing issues, according to the AWS status page.
“We are seeing improved availability in most AWS services,” the advisory says. “We continue to work towards a full recovery of all impacted AWS services and API operations. “
Among the services that reported problems following the outage were Disney’s streaming subscription service, Disney +, Netflix, Slack, Ticketmaster, the Robinhood stock trading app and Coinbase, the largest exchange. of cryptocurrency in the United States.
The outage also brought down critical tools used within Amazon. Handlers and delivery people, as well as Amazon’s Flex service drivers, posted on reddit that they could not access the Flex app or the AtoZ app, making it impossible to scan packages or access delivery routes.
In a statement, Amazon spokesman Richard Rocha confirmed that Amazon’s warehouse and delivery operations were experiencing problems due to the AWS outage. Rocha added that the company “is working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.”
Amazon did not respond to questions about how many warehouses and delivery stations were having problems due to the outage.
Amazon sellers have also reported that they cannot access Seller Central, an internal website used to manage customer orders.
In a notice sent to delivery drivers through Amazon Chime, an internal chat app, and viewed by CNBC, the company said it is “currently monitoring a network-wide technical outage” impacting the operations of delivery.
“If the drivers cannot continue delivering due to the outage, go to a safe place nearby and wait,” the message continued.
Samuel Caceres, an Amazon driver in Washington state, told CNBC that his delivery facility had been “shut down” since 8 a.m. PT. Since then, drivers and warehouse workers have been on standby, he added.
Unable to go about their day-to-day business, many warehouse and delivery workers were ordered to wait in break rooms until issues were resolved. Some Flex drivers, who are contract workers who make deliveries from their own vehicles, were unable to sign up for shifts and were sent home for the day.
The blackout hits Amazon’s retail operations at a particularly inconvenient time. The business is in the midst of “peak season,” when holiday shoppers are throwing in a flurry of orders and the e-commerce giant is under tremendous pressure to make sure their packages arrive on time.
Amazon’s in-house delivery arm of contract delivery companies and independent Flex drivers are increasingly overseeing this piece of the puzzle. The company delivers about two-thirds of its own packages to the United States, according to data from ShipMatrix.
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