Cloudflare suffered a major outage on Nov. 18, and it took many major platforms down with it. OpenAI, Spotify, X, and Canva were among just some of the websites and services that went down Tuesday morning.
Feel like you’re experiencing deja vu? Well, you’re not.
The recent Cloudflare outage is not to be confused with the recent Microsoft Azure outage, which resulted in Xbox, Minecraft, and other platforms going down. And don’t forget the other major incident that occurred in October, when issues at Amazon Web Services (AWS) led to Amazon, Reddit, Snapchat, and other big platforms going offline. It’s also completely separate from the June outage, when Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Cloudflare took down swaths of the internet
OK, so the internet’s biggest websites and platforms have been going down a lot lately. What’s going on here?
Why do so many websites go down at the same time?
Those big social media platforms, e-commerce websites, and gaming networks are all using the same few major service providers to host and deliver their content, with Cloudflare being one of them.
Cloudflare is one of the largest Content Delivery Networks (CDN), which is a system that manages web traffic. When Cloudflare functions normally, it manages web traffic and protects platforms from attacks.
“CDNs are distributed infrastructures that accelerate content delivery and enhance user experience by caching and serving web content closer to users,” explained Angelique Medina, Head of Internet Intelligence at the network intelligence company Cisco ThousandEyes, to Mashable. “They essentially serve as the ‘front door’ to websites and applications, with users connecting to Cloudflare’s servers instead of those of its customers.”
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“When this ‘front door’ becomes unavailable, users lose the entry point to many sites and applications,” Medina said. “Given the large number of customers and sites that they service, any meaningful disruption in their ability to deliver content could effectively render large parts of the internet unreachable to users.”
Basically, the internet has consolidated, and we’re all reaping the rewards of that consolidation.
“This isn’t just another technical setback,” said Ramutė Varnelytė, CEO of IPXO, a leading IP resource management platform in Europe, in a statement provided to Mashable. “It’s further proof of how exposed [the] digital economy is to various malfunctions in just a few of the digital infrastructure service providers.”
Are internet outages occurring more frequently?
Back in the earlier days of the internet, there were countless web hosting providers, and many companies even ran their own dedicated servers. Now, companies big and small are all utilizing the same few cloud service providers, whether it be AWS, GCP, or Azure. Cloudflare makes the internet even more vulnerable to disruption, as the company has no one-to-one direct competitor.
“The incident further emphasizes the inherent danger of the entire internet infrastructure relying on a few service providers,” Varnelytė said.
But, is that it? And are these services really going down more than usual? According to Cisco ThousandEyes, which tracks outages and maps them, that’s correct. Web downtime is actually not happening more than usual, even if it seems that way.
“Cisco ThousandEyes has not seen an increase in the frequency of service outages in cloud and other Internet infrastructure providers; however, the number of sites and applications dependent on these services has increased,” Medina shared. “Because these services are increasingly a point of centralization — with a small number of companies handling large swaths of the Internet — if something goes wrong, it can lead to the disruption of many sites and applications around the globe.”
In short, the number of disruptions isn’t increasing. Rather, the shockwaves of individual incidents are getting bigger.
Why Does the Internet Keep Crashing So Frequently enough? First Google Cloud, Then AWS, Now Cloudflare.
The Anatomy of Major Internet Outages
When we hear media headlines like “Google Cloud outage,” “AWS downtime,” or “Cloudflare internet issues,” it often sparks frustration and confusion among users who depend daily on the internet’s reliability. But why are these outages happening so frequently, and what exactly causes them to disrupt the internet on such a massive scale?
Common Causes Behind Internet Service Disruptions
- Network Configuration Errors: A tiny slip in updating routing tables or DNS settings can cascade into widespread failure. for instance, misconfigured Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) paths can make large parts of the internet unreachable.
- Hardware Failures: Data centers house thousands of servers and networking devices. Any critical hardware failure, such as routers, switches, or storage arrays, can cause service halts.
- Software Bugs and Deployments: Cloud providers frequently update their systems. Mishandled software updates or bugs can inadvertently bring down critical services.
- Traffic Overloads and DDoS Attacks: Sudden surges or malicious traffic aimed at overwhelming systems can cause unintended crashes or slowdowns.
- Human Error: Sometiems, manual mistakes in configuration or maintenance trigger outages that affect millions.
Why Are Google Cloud, AWS, and Cloudflare So Critical?
Google cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Cloudflare are some of the largest cloud infrastructure providers globally. They power millions of websites, apps, and services we rely on daily. When these giants face outages, the ripple effect hits:
- Dependency Concentration: Many enterprises and developers choose one or a few cloud providers due to cost, convenience, or features, concentrating traffic and critical services on those platforms.
- Global Reach: These providers operate huge data centers worldwide, so an outage in a key region can impact users globally.
- Core Internet Services: Cloudflare, for example, also handles DNS resolution and content delivery networks (CDN), both essential to internet functionality.
Recent Notable Outages at Major Providers
| Provider | Date | Issue | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Cloud | April 2023 | Network congestion & configuration error | Major website downtime, API failures |
| AWS | November 2023 | DNS resolution failure | E-commerce and streaming service interruptions |
| Cloudflare | July 2024 | Routing issue causing global DNS outages | Millions inaccessible websites and apps |
How These Outages Affect You and the Internet at Large
Users might experience:
- Slow or inaccessible websites and applications.
- disrupted online gaming and streaming sessions.
- E-commerce transaction failures.
- Dialog and collaboration downtime for businesses.
For companies, outages can mean loss of revenue, damage to reputation, and operational delays. The increasing frequency and severity of these incidents puts internet reliability under the spotlight.
Behind the Scene: Firsthand Experiences and Community Reports
Communities and forums frequently enough share reports when internet services fail. For example:
- Users reporting browser crashes and connectivity issues on various devices and browsers [[1]](https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/locked-topics-alienware-general/alienware-m14x-internet-browser-crashes-used-all/647f401ff4ccf8a8de7b752e)
- Gamers experiencing periodic internet crashes disrupting gameplay [[2]](https://www.sevenforums.com/network-sharing/221380-internet-crashes-randomly-when-gaming.html)
- Windows 10/11 users encountering network setting windows crashing, leading to no connectivity [[3]](https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/xps-desktops/xps-8910-network-internet-settings-window-crashes-no-connectivity/647f9412f4ccf8a8de6485f8)
These anecdotal reports highlight how internet issues aren’t confined to providers alone but can be amplified by local device or network problems as well.
Practical Tips to Mitigate Impact From Internet Crashes
While large-scale outages are outside end-user control, you can take steps to reduce downtime impact:
- Use Multi-DNS Providers: Configure your devices or routers to use more than one DNS service, such as Google DNS and Cloudflare DNS, to improve resilience.
- Check Network Hardware: Regularly update firmware on routers and modems to avoid bugs that can cause intermittent connections.
- Monitor provider Status Pages: Being aware of ongoing outages can definitely help set expectations and plan workarounds.
- Keep Local Backups: Store critical files and data locally or offline to reduce reliance on cloud during outages.
- Use VPN Wisely: Sometimes a VPN can route around localized network issues, improving connectivity during provider outages.
Emerging Solutions and the Future of Internet Stability
To combat frequent internet crashes, cloud providers and the industry are evolving technologies to increase stability:
- Decentralized Infrastructure: Moving away from concentrated data centers toward edge computing can reduce impact radius of failures.
- Improved Routing Protocols: Advances in BGP security and routing optimization help prevent misconfigurations causing outages.
- AI-Based Monitoring: Real-time anomaly detection can nip issues in the bud before cascading failures occur.
- Better User Communication: Obvious and prompt incident reporting helps reduce confusion and misinformation.
