Amazon Web Services outage impacts Rider

By Caroline Haviland

Amazon Web Services experienced a worldwide outage in the early morning of Oct. 20, impacting the apps, websites and online tools supported by the infrastructure. The disruption affected services like Canvas and Grubhub, leaving Rider students, faculty and staff scrambling to find last-minute solutions. 

The problem began in one of AWS’s oldest data centers in Virginia, when an error occurred during an update of a cloud database service, according to The Associated Press. The cascading technological issues that stemmed from one event, Associate Professor Libby Newman said, was surprising. 

“I don’t know if I’m qualified to know what the solution is. I know that there must be different ways to sort of manage this, but it was shocking that so many things across so many different sectors were affected,” Newman said. 

The outage had an effect on a range of services, from apps and websites to banks and U.S. airlines, according to AP.

The setbacks were slightly impactful, Newman said, as she had to reschedule an exam and could not communicate with her students through the messaging platform on the Navigate360 app. Once the complications were resolved by the end of the day, however, Newman said there was no update from Rider’s Office of Information Technologies and wished there had been more communication from their end.

OIT sent a universitywide email at 10:36 a.m. on Oct. 20 to report Canvas was unavailable for the entire campus community, but they stated the situation was being actively monitored. An hour later, OIT sent a follow up universitywide email and said the outage affected other non-academic platforms used by Rider, particularly Grubhub. After that, no other communication was sent out.

Newly appointed Chief Information Officer Ben Adams was unavailable to comment on the major outage after multiple requests for an interview from The Rider News on Oct. 21. OIT staff declined to make a statement due to policy concerns. 

With a lack of updates from OIT, many students had no choice but to take a break from homework while Canvas was down. Senior graphic design major Kalvin Nue said he found the inability to look at future assignments throughout the day frustrating. His professors, he said, simply pushed back due dates and used alternative platforms during class to abide by the outage. 

Students working at Saxbys, however, were faced with the decision of keeping the student-run cafe open while Grubhub, the primary system that receives their orders, was defective. 

Rider Saxbys Student Chief Executive Officer and junior marketing major Felipe Ramirez said the work day ended at 4 p.m. for his staff, three hours earlier than their usual closing time. 

“We were on the fence between knowing if we should close earlier or if we should close on time because we didn’t know if staying open was worth it for a few guests to come in to order in person. … I think [closing] was the smartest decision. … At a certain point, the outage just made it so difficult to operate with a long line,” Ramirez said. 

Another eatery on campus, Cranberry’s, also had complications due to their system accepting orders on Grubhub. Students waited in a long line to order their food at one of the two kiosk stations. 

Resident District Manager of Rider’s Dining Services Peter Ehlin said in an email to The Rider News, “Since we rely on Grubhub for mobile order intake, the disruption required us to pivot quickly to accepting orders directly at the kiosks in the eateries on campus. While the adjustment was challenging, especially during peak hours – the team did a great job adapting and keeping things moving.”

According to AP, Amazon reported that its services supported by AWS were back online in the late afternoon on Oct. 20.