Close
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Logo
Logo
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Cloud
    • Cloud

    Typo Set in Motion Chain of Events That Shut Down AWS S3 Cloud

    By
    Wayne Rash
    -
    March 5, 2017
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin
      cloud security

      You hear about accident investigations on a regular basis. When an airliner goes down, or a train comes off the rails or any other serious accident, an investigation starts along with the grim task of recovering the dead and injured.

      Usually, there will be a briefing by the investigating authority at the start and then you won’t hear anything for months. Few people know is what the investigators are even looking for.

      That’s because it can take months for the investigators to go through every detail before determining what caused the accident. The investigations are elaborate because there’s rarely a single cause to a serious accident. Eventually the investigation will show that a sequence of events occurred and it’s possible that the accident could have been prevented if any one of those event had changed.

      Investigations of this type actually happen for accidents of all sorts, not just transportation catastrophes. Companies and regulators follow similar procedures for a wide variety of unplanned events. In fact, companies will launch such an investigation when an accident causes a major loss, such as the outage that took out Amazon Web Services and its S3 storage services on February 28, which explains why the company undertook one.

      I observed this first-hand in the late spring of 1971, when I was sent up a mountain near Roanoke, Virginia, to cover an airplane crash for the television station where I’d just started working. On that mountain, World War II hero and Hollywood actor Audie Murphy and five others had died as the airplane in which they were riding slammed into the top of a fog shrouded mountain.

      Around me as I climbed the side of the mountain with the rest of the news crew were representatives from the National Transportation Safety Board, already taking photos and making measurements of the crash site. Later, they would take all the components they could find of the shattered aircraft to a hanger for examination and further investigation.

      To me, as I reported from that mountainside, the reason for the crash seemed obvious. The pilot must have been lost in the fog, and failed to see the mountain. But the truth was much more complicated than that.

      The investigators had to learn why the pilot been lost like that near a major airport? Why hadn’t he performed an instrument landing at the major airport nearby after the weather had turned bad? The questions were eventually answered, and ultimately a lesson was learned.

      Fortunately, not every accident results in tragic deaths. But every serious accident must be investigated to learn how it happened and how it can be prevented from happening again.

      This was the case with the Feb. 28 event when Amazon Web Service’s S3 storage services shut down for hours. This time the losses measured not in lives, but in millions of dollars lost by Amazon and clients because of the down time. Clearly an investigation was in order.

      But as Amazon explained in a report it released on March 2 along with an apology to its customers, it was of chain of events that started with the smallest of errors, a typo in a server update command.

      Wayne Rash
      https://www.eweek.com/author/wayne-rash/
      Wayne Rash is a freelance writer and editor with a 35-year history covering technology. He’s a frequent speaker on business, technology issues and enterprise computing. He is the author of five books, including his most recent, "Politics on the Nets." Rash is a former Executive Editor of eWEEK and a former analyst in the eWEEK Test Center. He was also an analyst in the InfoWorld Test Center and editor of InternetWeek. He's a retired naval officer, a former principal at American Management Systems and a long-time columnist for Byte Magazine.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Cybersecurity

      Visa’s Michael Jabbara on Cybersecurity and Digital...

      James Maguire - May 17, 2022 0
      I spoke with Michael Jabbara, VP and Global Head of Fraud Services at Visa, about the cybersecurity technology used to ensure the safe transfer...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      Alteryx’s Suresh Vittal on the Democratization of...

      James Maguire - May 31, 2022 0
      I spoke with Suresh Vittal, Chief Product Officer at Alteryx, about the industry mega-shift toward making data analytics tools accessible to a company’s complete...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      GoodData CEO Roman Stanek on Business Intelligence...

      James Maguire - May 4, 2022 0
      I spoke with Roman Stanek, CEO of GoodData, about business intelligence, data as a service, and the frustration that many executives have with data...
      Read more
      Applications

      Cisco’s Thimaya Subaiya on Customer Experience in...

      James Maguire - May 10, 2022 0
      I spoke with Thimaya Subaiya, SVP and GM of Global Customer Experience at Cisco, about the factors that create good customer experience – and...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Yotascale CEO Asim Razzaq on Controlling Multicloud...

      James Maguire - May 5, 2022 0
      Asim Razzaq, CEO of Yotascale, provides guidance on understanding—and containing—the complex cost structure of multicloud computing. Among the topics we covered:  As you survey the...
      Read more
      Logo

      eWeek has the latest technology news and analysis, buying guides, and product reviews for IT professionals and technology buyers. The site’s focus is on innovative solutions and covering in-depth technical content. eWeek stays on the cutting edge of technology news and IT trends through interviews and expert analysis. Gain insight from top innovators and thought leaders in the fields of IT, business, enterprise software, startups, and more.

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Advertisers

      Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on eWeek and our other IT-focused platforms.

      Advertise with Us

      Menu

      • About eWeek
      • Subscribe to our Newsletter
      • Latest News

      Our Brands

      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms
      • About
      • Contact
      • Advertise
      • Sitemap
      • California – Do Not Sell My Information

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      © 2021 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×