Sean Wallbridge
In the cloud computing market, AWS receives a lot of media coverage.
But not always the coverage they want.
On December 7, AWS clients lost access to their services. Amazon said the root cause was “an impairment of several network devices,” which could mean almost anything. What it doesn’t mean is that new clients and late adopters of cloud computing will have complete trust to have seamless access to their information in the cloud.
Although Amazon said “many services have already recovered”, shortly after the outage occurred, it disrupted some of the world’s largest businesses and platforms, including Disney Plus, Alexa, Ring, Amazon’s delivery service, and more. So what does this outage mean for the future of cloud computing?
What the Outage Means for Cloud Computing
Let’s not overreact to the outage. While an outage can temporarily disrupt a business, let’s understand what this outage means for cloud computing as a whole.
AWS (and all cloud services) are still young and growing. Amazon has yet to reach the top 20 services in the SaaS market according to Business Insider. Outages are growing pains that identify areas where they need to improve. How they respond to this issue is what matters. They should own the outage, identify what caused it, and take action to prevent it in the future. While Amazon hasn’t released the full details about this outage, there are fixes to prevent “impairments of network devices.”
Here are four long-term results I expect to see from the AWS outage and other outages:
- Expectations Will Be More Realistic
Cloud computing relies on modern technology. We can’t have the same expectations for cloud computing services that we do for onsite servers. They are different, and our expectations will adjust over time, just as they have for cellphones when compared to landlines.
- Informed Decision-Making
AWS will likely experience a short-term loss of clients to other service providers. I expect outages and setbacks to result in companies spending more time choosing what service provider to choose. Informed consumers are always a positive for the industry as a whole, as it helps their business avoid mistakes and puts pressure on service providers like Amazon.
- Innovation and Increase Safeguards
Problems lead to solutions. The AWS outage will force all cloud services providers to re-analyze their network, include additional safeguards, and innovate to ensure they don’t experience a similar issue.
- Multi-Cloud☁️☁️ Strategy Will Continue to Grow
Approximately 81% of all enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy, meaning they rely on more than one service provider. When an outage occurs with AWS, they will still have access to their data and tools. This most recent outage will force enterprises to reevaluate their multi-cloud strategy.
Summary
Cloud computing still has room to grow and improve. As it stands today, cloud computing provides endless possibilities due to the flexibility, cost savings, and security.
How did the AWS Outage affect you? What do you see for the future? We’d love to hear what you think.
Regroove helps businesses grow by utilizing the cloud. Learn more about Regroove here.