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Amazon Web Services Outage Disrupts Midterm Access Nationwide

10/21/2025

40 3 Full Breakdown

Summary

Story summary

Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced a nationwide outage on October 20 that disrupted access to Canvas.
The outage began around 2 a.m. ET and also affected Snapchat and United Airlines.
Students reported being unable to access assignments and course materials during midterm season.
AWS identified the issue as a malfunction in its Elastic Compute Cloud network.
Recovery efforts are ongoing, and there is no clear timeline for full restoration.

History

Historical Context

Amazon Web Services (AWS), launched in 2006, has faced multiple outages, including significant disruptions in 2011 and 2020 that affected major platforms like Netflix and Reddit. The recent outage on October 20, 2025, impacted services such as Canvas and United Airlines, highlighting ongoing concerns about reliance on single cloud providers. As of 2023, AWS holds a 31% share of the cloud infrastructure market.

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Story summary

Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced a nationwide outage on October 20 that disrupted access to Canvas.
The outage began around 2 a.m. ET and also affected Snapchat and United Airlines.
Students reported being unable to access assignments and course materials during midterm season.
AWS identified the issue as a malfunction in its Elastic Compute Cloud network.
Recovery efforts are ongoing, and there is no clear timeline for full restoration.

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