A large-scale computer outage that hit Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon's cloud service, has mostly been restored, but some errors reportedly remain.
As of 12:15 p.m. on the 20th (local time), Amazon said in a notice posted online that "recovery is underway across all AWS services," adding that access to services was being successfully achieved across most of the U.S. East region.
However, it added that some services that provide rented servers could experience "intermittent errors" while resolving a network connection issue.
The outage was first reported in the AWS service region in Northern Virginia shortly after midnight that day, U.S. West Coast time.
About two hours later, the company said in an online notice that a DNS issue had occurred with its major database service DynamoDB.
DNS is a system that converts website names into IP addresses so that browsers and other applications can connect.
However, the company did not provide further details.
With an outage hitting the AWS network, which accounts for about one-third of the global cloud services market, services operated by several large companies were disrupted and countless users were affected.
According to Downdetector, a U.S. online outage-tracking site, users reported being unable to access sites including Disney+, Lyft, the McDonald's app, The New York Times, Reddit, Ring doorbell, Robinhood, Snapchat, United Airlines, T-Mobile, PayPal and Venmo. Major sites of U.K. government agencies were also reported to have experienced problems.
Several affiliate sites, including Amazon's e-commerce delivery system, were also reportedly down for a time.
Social media users voiced complaints that outages occurred across cloud-based games, including Roblox and Fortnite.
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase also saw many users inconvenienced by a service interruption.
Mehdi Daoudi, CEO of internet performance monitoring company Catchpoint, told CNN that the economic damage from the AWS service disruption is estimated to reach billions of dollars (trillions of won).