Amazon’s AWS DynamoDB experiences outage, affecting Netflix, Reddit, Medium, and more (Update: Fixed)

Good morning!

Did you notice any apps not working on your phone? Perhaps no Netflix?

That’s because for the past few hours, Amazon Web Services has been undergoing a widespread outage.

This has affected Netflix, Product Hunt, Nest, Reddit, Medium, IMDB, Social Flow, and Amazon’s own Alexa and Instant Video services for users across eastern North America.

#DynamoDB takes down Netflix, Product Hunt, Medium, SocialFlow, Buffer, GroupMe, Pocket, Viber, Amazon Echo, NEST, IMDB & more…#AWSoutage

— Satyajeet (@HeySisyphus) September 20, 2015

The culprit appears to be Amazon’s DynamoDB in Northern Virginia:

And, predictably, the Internet is freaking out:

according to http://t.co/pGodB5AKdQ a huge metor has crashed and destroyed the entire US east coast, god speed #aws #awsoutage

— Christian Westman ? (@westmaaan) September 20, 2015

Today loads of companies re-assess how seriously to take the message of 'design for failure' to include multiple geographic regions. #aws

— Gavin Hamill (@gdh_gdh) September 20, 2015

This is what I assume #AWS #AWSOutage looks like right now.. pic.twitter.com/jdZVP1p6Rc

— Jess Bahr ? (@putapixelonit) September 20, 2015

https://twitter.com/Opacki/status/645610294266322944

VentureBeat uses SocialFlow to schedule social media posts. You might have noticed that links in our social media streams lead you to a 503 error page. We’re, uh, hoping Amazon sorts that out.

This is likely to be a very costly mistake for Amazon. Back in 2013, a similar outage cost Amazon a reported $1,100 per second.

In the meantime, go outside. Lay in the grass and consider the cascading effects of our entire modern lives residing in fallible computer systems.

Update 11:50 AM ET: Most services appear to be back online, and the AWS service dashboard is showing all green.