“Canvas is experiencing issues due to an ongoing AWS incident.”
This was the message Northern Kentucky University students saw when they tried to log into Canvas on Monday. Around 3:11 a.m. EDT, Amazon Web Services (AWS) suffered a nationwide outage that impacted more than 1,000 services. The disruption caused widespread access issues for companies and universities across the country, including NKU.
According to Statista, Amazon Web Services is the largest cloud computing platform in the world, used by streaming services, Adobe, Pfizer, Venmo, Snapchat, Zoom and many other platforms students use daily, arguably most importantly, Canvas.
AWS said the incident was tied to a DNS-resolution problem in its largest and oldest data center, US-EAST-1 in Northern Virginia. The issue caused network slowdowns and failures for multiple services that rely on AWS servers.
DNS, an acronym for Domain Name System, is essentially a large-scale address book for the Internet.
When a user enters a website like nku.edu, a request is sent to a DNS server that asks where the website is located in numerical format (IP address), as your computer doesn’t know where nku.edu is located. When a DNS-resolution issue occurs, navigation within the affected network can become difficult, delayed, or outright impossible because the actual location a user is trying to go is not being accessed properly from the DNS server.
It’s like trying to text someone by using their name, but not having access to their phone number; a critical part of the navigation process is broken.
Instead of companies running their own servers and data centers, AWS rents out storage, networking tools, and processing power as a service provider. Physical servers and data storage require employees and financial resources to run and can be difficult to maintain. Many companies take advantage of AWS’s services to run their business more efficiently and effectively.
Many people nationwide have been affected and this issue caused a halt for NKU students and faculty. Canvas is NKU’s most-used platform for assignments and communication. Without it, students weren’t able to turn in homework, access course materials, or check grades. Professors could not post announcements or administer quizzes, interrupting class assignments, lessons, and class exams.
NKU released a statement addressing the outage and informed students of the information they had at the time. It reassured students with the hope that the issue would be resolved.
“Northern Kentucky University is aware of the ongoing Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage that is temporarily affecting access to Canvas and other online systems nationwide. This is an external issue impacting many institutions, and unfortunately, it is beyond our control. AWS is working to resolve the problem as quickly as possible,” the university said in a statement.
NKU also directed students to follow the status of the issue at Amazon Service Health or Canvas Status.
By Monday evening, AWS confirmed the issue had been resolved, and access to Canvas returned for NKU students and faculty. While the issue only lasted a day, it showed how dependent universities are on AWS services. This event, most importantly, was an example of how our most frequently used technology can fail at any time. NKU made its best efforts to continue on with classes as normal and inform students about ongoing updates.