Skip to content

AWS Outage: What to Do During Cloud Interruptions, My Experiences

Yes, it happened again last night, I woke up to news of an AWS outage. While drinking my coffee in the morning, I checked my phone and saw everyone on social media saying AWS was down. Naturally, I logged into my system immediately, our REST API is written in C# and connected to PostgreSQL with Dapper, so I just wanted to check if everything was okay. Luckily, nothing went wrong on our end, but that moment reminded me of a past outage, which I remember frustrating me.

In fact, AWS outages have been occurring more frequently lately, haven’t they? Amazon’s massive cloud service hosts millions of sites and applications, and when an outage happens, it causes a domino effect. Snapchat, Reddit, even Ring are affected, and status sites like Down Detector bog down. These outages show how critical cloud infrastructure is; when everything depends on a single point, risks increase.

This outage seemed concentrated in the us-east-1 region, affecting DynamoDB and other services. I believe it was a network issue, though I don’t know the exact details—checking the AWS’s official site status page is necessary, where real-time updates are provided, and everything turns from green to red when an outage occurs.

By the way, I recalled a previous outage when I experienced problems in my REST API. In my C# .NET project, I was uploading files to AWS S3, and it returned errors, timeouts etc. It turned out the connection had dropped, and I panicked, debugging the code, fixed the async await, but couldn’t resolve it before the outage ended. That day, I learned the importance of having a backup plan.

Now, let’s think about what should be done during outages. First, monitor your system; set up monitoring tools like New Relic or Datadog. Since we are small-scale, I wrote a simple script in C# that periodically pings AWS endpoints. If down, it sends me an email. Simple but effective, right?

Why Do AWS Outages Happen? Let’s Dive a Little Deeper

AWS outages are generally caused by network failures, power outages, or software bugs. I remember once a DDoS attack caused an outage, and everything was chaotic. DDoS attacks are a separate topic but can happen even to large providers like AWS. These outages serve as lessons for developers, teaching us to deploy multi-region architectures.

However, during outages, don’t panic—first check the status. Search for ‘AWS outage status’ on Google for the latest updates. Down Detector is also useful; it contains user reports and feedback during outages.

Among the most affected are e-commerce sites and streaming services. Even Amazon itself experiences occasional disruptions, like Prime Video streaming issues. So, what would you do if an outage occurs? Would you stick to coding like me or just drink coffee and relax? 🙂

Recently, during an outage, I faced a hardware fault in my embedded system project. The power supply wasn’t sufficient, constantly resetting the system. When combined with the outage news, I thought, “cloud and circuits are similar.” I debugged with an oscilloscope, increased the voltage, and succeeded.

Practical Solutions, Step by Step (But Not Quite)

Set up failover mechanisms for outages. For instance, in a C# REST API, use alternatives like Azure or a local database instead of AWS. I am connected to PostgreSQL with Dapper; if an outage occurs, I switch the connection string in code. First, check the status, then add retry logic like exponential backoff—wait 1 second, then 2, then 4 seconds, etc.

Yes, these retries save lives. Once, I forgot to do this, and my API kept returning 500 errors, causing user complaints. I updated the code to perform automatic retries. Also, caching, like with Redis, is important to prevent data loss during outages.

Interestingly, during outages, everyone rushes to Down Detector, slowing down the site. I saw a site that explains how to use mock data during outages, but I can’t find the link now. Discussions about this can be found on Reddit r/aws, where developers share experiences; it’s very helpful.

Ultimately, AWS outages are inevitable, but being prepared makes a difference. While living in Bursa, I can’t go mountaineering during outages; instead, I code at home. Even while spending time with my wife and child, I keep thinking of new failover solutions.

Security is also vital during outages—as DDoS or cyberattacks can trigger further issues. I strengthen my firewalls accordingly. For frontend, I implement simple controls with jQuery, and on the backend, I do rate limiting in C#. I set a limit of 100 requests/sec; if exceeded, I block the IP.

However, everything goes back to normal once the outage ends. I believe this one lasted about 2-3 hours, though I don’t remember exactly, just from news reports. So, during outages, stay calm, follow the status updates, and implement your backup plan.

In Conclusion, What Do I Think?

In fact, AWS outages make me a better developer; I learn something new each time. Don’t panic when outages happen—try practical solutions. Maybe next time, we can share our outage stories, wouldn’t that be great? 🙂

By the way, I built a dashboard with Vue.js for outage monitoring, which pulls API data using jQuery AJAX calls. It’s a simple project but workable. If you’re interested, I can share the code later.