Enterprise

AWS hits snag after Amazon Prime Day downtime

Key Points
  • Amazon said core AWS services are still working.
  • The development came on the same day as Amazon e-commerce downtime.
Trying to log onto Amazon Web Services' management console.
Screenshot

Amazon is having a bad day.

After reeling from technical glitches that prevented many shoppers from accessing bargains on Prime Day, the company's biggest shopping day, the company announced another outage that makes it harder for Amazon Web Services customers to control their usage.

The outage is unusual, and is not a positive sign for the market-leading cloud for hosting applications. Amazon's biggest cloud competitors, Google and Microsoft, also occasionally run into issues affecting availability.

"We are currently experiencing intermittent errors accessing the AWS Management Console when using account login credentials." Amazon said at 5:10 pm Eastern Time. That console is how customers can control their use of AWS resources from the web.

The company also noted that "The underlying AWS services and console logins using IAM users are operating normally."

At that time, if a person entered account information to log on to the AWS Management Console, the person would receive an error message with a picture of a dog -- just like the error messages people have seen on Amazon.com on Monday in connection with Prime Deal discount promotions.

At 5:47 p.m. Eastern time the company provided an update.

"We have identified the root cause for the intermittent errors accessing the AWS Management Console when using root account login credentials," Amazon said. "We are beginning to see recovery, and continue to work toward full resolution. The underlying AWS services and console logins using IAM users continue to operate normally."

At 6:44 p.m. Eastern time, Amazon indicated that the problem had been resolved.

"Between 12:28 p.m. and 3:13 p.m. PDT, we experienced intermittent errors accessing the AWS Management Console. AWS services were not affected by this event. This issue has been resolved and the service is operating normally," the company said.

Afterward, AWS provided a statement to CNBC regarding the downtime:

"AWS continues to function normally," a spokesman wrote in an email. "We saw some intermittent AWS Management Console issues earlier today, but they did not drive any meaningful impact on Amazon's consumer business."

The AWS and Prime Day problems were not connected, according to a person familiar with both issues.

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