The global internet outage is the result of a cloud provider having a service failure, specifically Amazon Web Services (AWS). This service breakdown, which started early Monday morning, affected the AWS US East region (the east coast of the United States), impacting many businesses and consumers. Services like Snapchat, Roblox, and Venmo were severely affected. While a cloud provider has their benefits for scalability and reliability, the current buzz created by this disturbance points to why there is a need for business awareness on cloud provider dependence. When a business has critical functions and possible gaps regarding the effects of an outage, it could have a major impact on its customer experience or ability to function during the outage.
For example, if you relied on AWS for all your business processes, from hosting your website to running critical applications, an outage in one region can create a bad day for your business. That is why it's important to not just accept cloud services as a given but to plan for their failure, just as you should in any disaster recovery and business continuity scenario. As a business owner, identifying key points of failure, whether relying on a single cloud region, one internet provider, or a single piece of software, redundancy is worth thinking about. It is important to pay attention to this event if you were not impacted, and even if you were, it's worth noting that disruptions are rare but not impossible. Planning and preparing for potential failures ensures your business can run smoothly, even when the cloud is down.
Do you need help ensuring your business is prepared? Intellisystems is here to help businesses like yours prepare for the unexpected. Book your discovery call today.
