March 2, 2017

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

Fat finger: Typo caused Amazon's big cloud-computing outage

This Sept. 6, 2012, file photo, shows the Amazon logo in Santa Monica, Calif. Amazon's cloud-computing service Amazon Web Services experienced problems in its eastern U.S. region, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2017, causing widespread problems for thousands of websites and apps. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)
× close
This Sept. 6, 2012, file photo, shows the Amazon logo in Santa Monica, Calif. Amazon's cloud-computing service Amazon Web Services experienced problems in its eastern U.S. region, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2017, causing widespread problems for thousands of websites and apps. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)

Amazon says an incorrectly typed command during a routine debugging of its billing system caused the five-hour outage of some Amazon Web Services servers on Tuesday.

In a summary posted online, the Seattle company says a command meant to remove a small number of servers for one of its S3 subsystems was entered incorrectly and a larger set of servers was removed. A full restart was required, which took longer than expected due to how fast Amazon Web Services has grown over the past few years.

Amazon says it is making changes to its system to make sure incorrect commands won't trigger an outage of its in the future.

Amazon is the world's largest provider of , which entails hosting companies' computing functions on remote servers.

Load comments (0)