A failure of the giant Fastly causes the worldwide fall of the internet. The blackout has rendered useless the websites of companies such as Google, Twitter or Amazon and of large media. What is Fastly, the great Internet provider?
This Tuesday the Internet has experienced a rare global disconnection . And is that a failure in the operation of Fastly , a popular US cloud service provider , has led to the blackout of the websites of millions of companies such as Google , Amazon , Twitter , Spotify and Twitch , as well as large media throughout the world, something that has also affected the operation of El Periódico de Catalunya .
What is Fastly, the great Internet provider that has saturated the network
The outage occurred at 11:58 am, when Fastly posted a notification with the message: “We are currently investigating the potential impact on the performance of our CDN services.” It is then when the websites of thousands of services have fallen or have been altered, which has intrigued users.
Quickly, the cloud computing company explained that it was working to resolve the failure that caused the blackout, which has not yet been determined why. At 12:57, almost an hour after its shutdown, the websites have started to work again, a connection restart that is taking place in a staggered manner depending on the country in which you live. “The problem was identified and a solution was applied. Customers may experience a higher burden of origin as global services return ”, they explained.
The ruling has also harmed the UK government websites, leaving its citizens unable to renew their passports, obtain driving licenses, apply for public aid or file income tax returns.
Why has it happened?
This episode once again highlights the lack of decentralization on the Internet and the concentration of power in a few hands. Fastly is a company that provides services in the cloud , or what is the same, a virtual space so that these websites can work. The aforementioned digital platforms and media companies, as well as thousands of others, have been affected because they all used Fastly’s services.
The cloud is the computer system that functions as the backbone of the Internet, storing billions of user data. In recent years, the battle to take over the juicy cloud market has intensified. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is its clear leader with a 32% share of the market, while its rivals, Azure (Microsoft) and Google Cloud are left with 20% and 9% respectively.
