A number of popular websites were, for the better part of Monday, October 20, left inaccessible due to a global outage affecting Amazon Web Services (AWS).
The cloud service provider suffered a widespread technical issue, which began at around 10am with a noticeable impact in Kenya, according to global monitoring site Downdetector.
By mid-morning, over 13,000 reports of AWS-related issues were filed worldwide, leading to the temporary breakdown of apps and platforms that rely on AWS to deliver their services.
In Kenya, some of the most affected platforms included Snapchat, Roblox, Duolingo and Canva. Snapchat users in Kenya, for example, reported experiencing app failures.
Roblox, the online gaming platform popular among children and teenagers, was also hit, with Kenyan gamers, including developers who build and monetise games on the platform, reporting login issues and server errors.
Popular design platform Canva, which is a favourite among students, marketers and content creators, also experienced service issues as users trying to access it or edit their designs were met with loading problems or blank screens.
Another popular app in Kenya that was affected was Duolingo, which is used by many Kenyans to study foreign languages. Learners faced app crashes and unresponsive features, disrupting daily lesson streaks.
Other notable global services that experienced disruptions include Coinbase, Amazon Alexa, Crunchyroll, Fortnite, PUBG, Apple TV, and The New York Times. While some of these are less commonly used in Kenya, others, like Coinbase, have seen growing traction among local crypto traders.
Amazon is yet to issue a detailed explanation on the same, although similar past outages have been linked to server misconfigurations or overloads within the AWS cloud infrastructure.
While some key platforms are down, it is also worth noting that not all of them are experiencing an outage. Google services, for instance, which run on the company’s own cloud computing platform, appear to be stable.
Meta platforms, which include Facebook and Instagram, also appeared relatively stable on Monday.
