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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?

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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.

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

And, predictably, the Internet is freaking out:

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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.

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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.

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