Notable Network and Cloud Outages of 2021

There are hundreds of cloud and network provider outages every week, more than anyone ever realizes.

To help convey the sheer volume of cloud provider and network provider outages, we’ve compiled this running post of the most notable ones in 2021 so far with a primary focus on North American providers, but coverage across the globe. Thanks to Tim Greene at Network World for the weekly write-up and to ThousandEyes for their extensive monitoring.

If you skim this list, I think you’ll be surprised. In fact, there are hundreds of outages every single week. That’s right, hundreds. Every week, the author only picks the most notable ones, usually 3 or 4 of them. How does this impact you or your organization? How does it affect your customers. Were you aware of the magnitude?

July 2021

July 29, 2021 – NetActuate: NetActuate experienced an outage affecting multiple downstream partners and customers in the US. The outage lasted around 18 minutes and appeared to center on NetActuate nodes in Dallas, Texas. Fifteen minutes later the number of affected nodes in Dallas appeared to drop and with it the number of affected customers and partners. The issue was cleared around 9:10 a.m. EDT.

July 27, 2021 – NTT America: NTT America experienced an outage that impacted some of its customers and partners across countries including the US, Ireland, Canada, France, South Africa, Germany, UK, Singapore, Japan, Spain, Sweden, Italy, Brazil, Republic of Korea, and the Netherlands. After about 15 minutes, NTT America nodes located in Paris, France, began exhibiting outage conditions. About 4:35 p.m. EDT, the node in Paris appeared to recover. Around 4:40 p.m. EDT, nodes located in New York, New York also began exhibiting outage conditions, but appeared to recover five minutes later. The number of countries and nodes hit by the outage continued to decrease until it appeared to clear around 5:25 p.m. EDT. Five minutes later the nodes in London began exhibiting outage conditions again. The issue was cleared around 5:35 PM EDT.

July 12, 2021 – Amazon: Amazon had an outage that impacted some of its downstream partners and customers in the U.S. and 12 other countries. The outage ran for about 43 minutes across five occurrences over a five-hour period. It was finally cleared at about 9:05 a.m. ET. The interruption centered on nodes in Tokyo; Columbus, Ohio; Montreal; and São Paulo.

July 12, 2021 – AT&T: A network disruption impacted customers of telecom carrier AT&T Inc. in 11 countries, including the U.S. The AT&T outage centered on nodes in Phoenix and lasted 14 minutes before it was cleared about 3:55 p.m. ET.

July 7, 2021 – Oracle: Oracle Corp. first experienced a network disruption affecting customers and downstream partners in the U.S., Japan and other countries interacting with Oracle Cloud services. The interruption, which apparently centered on nodes in Chicago and Washington, D.C., lasted 23 minutes and was cleared about 11:30 a.m. ET.

July 7, 2021 – NTT America: An interruption impacted downstream partners and customers of NTT Global’s internet service provider unit NTT America Inc. in the U.S., the U.K. and eight other countries. The outage, which centered on nodes in Tokyo, Los Angeles and Seattle, ran for about 14 minutes before it was cleared at about 1:25 p.m. ET.

June 2021

June 24, 2021 – Amazon: At 3:10 p.m. EDT on June 24, Amazon experienced an interruption that impacted downstream partners and customers in countries including the US, the UK, Australia, South Africa, India, Japan, Mexico, Germany, and the Philippines. The 17-minute outage appeared to center on Amazon nodes in Columbus, Ohio, and the number of countries affected was at its highest for the first 10 minutes, decreased steadily until the last seven minutes when it appeared to affect only the US, India and the Philippines. The outage was cleared around 3:35 p.m. EDT.

June 23, 2021 – TATA Communications (America): At 7:20 p.m. EDT on June 23, TATA Communications (America) experienced an outage that impacted downstream partners and customers in countries including the US, Australia, India, Japan, Brazil, the UK, Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. The outage lasted around 12 minutes and appeared to center on TATA nodes in Montreal, Canada, and Chicago, Illinois. It was cleared around 7:35 PM EDT.

June 22. 2021 – Internap: At 12:50 a.m. EDT on June 22, Internap experienced an outage affecting downstream partners and customers in countries including the US, the UK, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, and Hong Kong. The outage lasted 24 minutes and centered on Internap nodes in New York, New York, and peaked during the first five minutes. It was cleared around 1:15 a.m. EDT.

June 17, 2021 – Akamai: About 12:20 a.m. EDT on June 17, Akamai’s DDoS mitigation service, Prolexic Routed, experienced a service disruption that made its customers’ websites, including major financial services firms and airlines, unreachable. The outage affected many of the approximately 500 Akamai Prolexic customers that use the service. During the incident, there appeared to be a massive surge in network outages that also coincided with application availability issues. Akamai identified the cause as the Prolexic routing process. The outage was most severe in its initial minutes, but lasted until about 4:22 a.m. EDT.

June 15, 2021 – Cogent Communications: About 2:40 p.m. EDT on June 15 , Cogent Communications experienced an outage that affecting downstream providers as well as Cogent customers in the US. The outage lasted around 35 minutes divided into three occurrences over the period of an hour. The first occurrence appeared centered on Cogent nodes in Chicago, Illinois, and Atlanta, Georgia. The outage appeared to clear around 2:45 p.m. EDT but reappeared five minutes later. Fifteen minutes into the outage the nodes in Atlanta, GA appeared to recover, leaving only the Cogent nodes located in Chicago exhibiting outage conditions. This continued for another four minutes before appearing to clear. The third occurrence of the outage was observed around 3:10 p.m. EDT centered at Cogent Chicago nodes. This third occurrence was the longest of the three, lasting around 24 minutes. The outage was cleared around 3:35 p.m. EDT.

June 9, 2021 – Zayo Group: About 1:10 a.m. EDT on June 9, Zayo Group experienced an outage that affected some of its partners and customers in countries including the US, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, the UK, Austria, Hong Kong, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Russia and Malaysia. The outage lasted around 54 minutes and appeared to center on Zayo nodes in Denver, Colorado, and Salt Lake City, Utah. Five minutes later, the Salt Lake City nodes appeared to recover but outage conditions started in nodes in Seattle, Washington, and London, UK. Thirty minutes into the outage it grew to include nodes in Chicago, Illinois, before being cleared around 2:10 a.m. EDT.

June 8, 2021 – Fastly: Around 5:50 a.m. EDT on June 8, Fastly suffered a major outage that impacted the sites and applications of many of its customers. The outage, lasting about an hour, caused users to have issues loading content and accessing sites around the globe. Not all customers were affected for the full hour because they were able to use alternative services to deliver content to users. Around 6:27 a.m. EDT, Fastly announced it had identified the source of the outage, and around 6:50 a.m. announced that all services had been restored and the outage was cleared. An in depth view of the outage can be found here.

June 2, 2021 – PCCW: About 3 a.m. EDT on June 2, the ISP PCCW, experienced a 19-minute outage impacting some of its customers and networks in the US. It appeared to center on PCCW infrastructure located in Ashburn, Virginia, and was cleared around 3:25 a.m. EDT.

June 1, 2021 – Microsoft: Around 6:45 p.m. on June 1, Microsoft experienced a 29-minute outage that impacted some downstream partners and access to services running on Microsoft environments. It appeared to be centered on Microsoft nodes located in Dublin, Ireland and was cleared around 7:15 p.m. EDT. Given the duration and timing relative to the location of the nodes at the cente of the outage, it is likely to have been a maintenance exercise.

June 1, 2021 – Flag Telecom Global Internet: Around 1:05 a.m. EDT on June 1, Flag Telecom Global Internet experienced an outage on their network that lasted around an hour and 51 minutes over a three-hour period. It affected customers and downstream partners in countries including the US, Australia, India, France, the Netherlands, Singapore, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Germany, Brazil, and Taiwan. It appeared to be centered on Flag Telecom nodes located in Singapore. Five minutes after the initial outage, Flag Telecom nodes in Hong Kong also exhibited outage conditions and coincided with an increase in the number of impacted countries, customers, and partners. After a further five minutes, the nodes located in Hong Kong appeared to recover for 10 minutes before exhibiting outage conditions again for five more minutes. Flag Telecom nodes located in Singapore also appeared to recover about 50 minutes after the initial outage. Around 2 a.m. EDT, the nodes located in Singapore again begin exhibiting outage conditions. A series of varying-duration outages, all centered on Singapore nodes, were observed for the next two hours. The outage was cleared around 4:05 a.m. EDT.

May 2021

May 26, 2021 – Verizon Business: At 12:15 a.m. EDT on May 26, Verizon Business experienced an outage affecting customers and partners across countries including the US, Ireland, Poland, the Netherlands, Canada, the UK, Germany, and India. The outage appeared to be centered on Verizon Business nodes in New York, New York, and was divided into two occurrences spanning 45 minutes. The first lasted around nine minutes and initially appeared to be clearing, with the number of affected parties dropping, but about 20 minutes later the outage returned and lasted about 23 minutes, again centered on nodes in New York.

May 26, 2021 – Cogent Communications: Around 1:35 p.m. EDT May 26, Cogent Communications experienced a series of outages totaling 48 minutes over the span of an hour and 10 minutes that impacted downstream providers and customers globally. The initial outage centered on Cogent nodes in Las Vegas, Nevada, and lasted around 12 minutes. Then the Cogent environment was stable for 10 minutes before experiencing a second occurrence on nodes in Dallas and Houston, Texas. Five minutes later, the Cogent node located in Dallas appeared to recover, but nodes in Kansas City, Missouri, experienced outages. After five more minutes the Kansas City nodes recovered, but nodes in Denver, Colorado, experienced outages.  Forty-five minutes after the initial outage was observed, a 24-minute outage was observed on nodes in Dallas, Houston, and Kansas City. Ten minutes into the third occurrence, the number of locations exhibiting outage conditions expanded to include Salt Lake City, Utah, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Denver. As the Cogent nodes involved increased, so did the number of customer networks that were affected. The outage was cleared around 2:45 p.m. EDT.

May 20, 2021 – Slack: Around 1:30 p.m. on May 20, Slack experienced an interruption to its business-communication platform that lasted about 25 minutes and affected users accessing the services. A number of internal server errors were observed. Slack identified the cause as a code change that inadvertently affected some workspaces. Slack reverted the change and restored services by 1:55 p.m. EDT.

May 19, 2021 – Coinbase: About 8:55 a.m. EDT on May 19, Coinbase experienced an interruption that lasted about two hours and affected global access to the Coinbase site and application. Connectivity and access across the network appeared to be unimpaired during the interruption, with initial requests simply timing out with system errors indicating system congestion. An hour and a half after the outage was first observed, services began to be restored, with access in APAC and EMEA still affected. The outage was cleared around 10:45 a.m. EDT.

May 17, 2021 – Hurricane Electric: On May 17, Hurricane Electric experienced an outage that was divided into three instances over an hour and a half that affected users across countries including the US, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, the UK, Brazil, Germany, South Africa, the Netherlands, and Canada. The first period was observed around 1:43 p.m. EDT centered on Hurricane Electric nodes in San Francisco and San Jose, California. After five minutes, the San Francisco nodes appeared to recover, reducing the scope of the outage. But five minutes after that, San Francisco nodes exhibited outage conditions again. Five minutes after this occurrence cleared, a second one lasting three minutes was observed centered on the San Jose and San Francisco nodes. Around 2:15 p.m. EDT, the nodes appeared to recover, temporarily clearing the outage, but an hour later, those two nodes exhibited outage conditions again before clearing after eight minutes. The total outage lasted around 26 minutes and was cleared around 3:25 p.m. EDT.

May 13, 2021 – TATA Communications (America): About 10:15 p.m. EDT on May 13, TATA Communications (America) experienced an outage affecting downstream partners and customers in countries including the US, the UK, Australia, India, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Hong Kong, Brazil, Switzerland, Republic of Korea, and Canada. The outage lasted 35 minutes and was divided into two periods over 55 minutes. The first period lasted around nine minutes and appeared to be centered on TATA nodes in Tokyo, Japan. About 10 minutes after it cleared, the outage reappeared, centering on TATA nodes located in Hong Kong and after another five minutes expanding to TATA nodes in Los Angeles, California. The nodes in Hong Kong appeared to clear after 15 minutes, leaving just the Los Angeles nodes exhibiting outage conditions. This second period of the outage lasted 26 minutes and was cleared around 11:10 p.m. EDT.

May 12, 2021 – NetActuate: About 3:30 p.m. on May 12, NetActuate experienced an outage affecting downstream partners and customers in the US. It lasted around 13 minutes overall, divided into two occurrences spanning a 30-minute period. The first lasted four minutes and appeared to center on NetActuate nodes located in Raleigh, North Carolina. The outage reappeared 15 minutes later and lasted nine minutes and centered on the Raleigh nodes and nodes in Durham, North Carolina, increasing the number of customers affected. The nodes in Durham cleared five minutes into the second period of the outage. The outage was cleared around 4:05 p.m. EDT.

May 11, 2021 – Salesforce: About 5:10 p.m. EDT on May 11, Salesforce experienced an interruption that left users able to reach the Salesforce front-end, but experiencing issues logging on and navigating to the Salesforce Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, and Experience Cloud. That indicated internet and network connectivity for end users was functioning. Salesforce identified issues with its domain name system that had a cascading effect on its services. A fix was implemented around 7:45 p.m. EDT, and the outage was cleared about 10:15 p.m. EDT.

May 7, 2021 – PCCW: Around 3:35 a.m. EDT on May 7, PCCW experienced an outage impacting some of its customers and networks in multiple countries including, the US, Australia, Brazil, and China. The outage lasted around 22 minutes and was divided into two periods over a half-hour span, the first of which appeared to center on PCCW infrastructure located in Ashburn, Virginia. It lasted about 18 minutes. Five minutes later it recurred, again centered in Ashburn, but with the outage condition including infrastructure in New York, New York. It lasted lasted around 4 minutes and was cleared around 4:05 a.m. EDT.

May 3, 2021 – Cloudflare: Around 6 p.m. EDT on May 3, Cloudflare experienced a disruption to its Magic Transit service when some customers began experiencing significant packet loss at Cloudflare’s network edge. The outage appeared to impact Cloudflare’s infrastructure across the globe, with packet loss occurring at varying levels for approximately two hours. At around 8 p.m. EDT, Cloudflare began implementing a fix for the issue, and announced that it was resolved just after 9 p.m. EDT.

April 2021

April 29, 2021 – TATA Communications (America): At 7:36 a.m. EDT on April 27, TATA Communications (America), experienced an outage affecting many of its downstream partners and customers in countries including the US, Australia, India, Japan, and the Philippines. The outage affected TATA nodes in Ashburn, Virginia, and appeared to clear after five minutes, but came back around 8 a.m. EDT centered on TATA nodes in Chicago, Illinois, and Los Angeles, California. The Chicago nodes appeared to recover 10 minutes later, leaving only the nodes in Los Angeles exhibiting outage conditions. About 10 minutes after that, nodes in Hong Kong began exhibiting outage conditions. In total, the outage lasted around 29 minutes, divided into two occurrences over the course of an hour and was cleared around 8:25 a.m. EDT.

April 29, 2021 – Hurricane Electric: At 12:40 a.m. EDT on April 29, Hurricane Electric experienced an outage affecting users across countries including the US, Spain, Russia, and Ireland. It affected Hurricane Electric nodes in Ashburn, Virginia, and New York, New York. After five minutes, the nodes in New York appeared to recover, reducing the impact to US users only. Around 12:50 a.m. EDT, the nodes in Ashburn appeared to recover, temporarily clearing the outage. But five minutes later the nodes located in New York began exhibiting outage conditions again before clearing after three minutes. The total outage lasted around 11 minutes, consisting of two periods over half an hour. The issue was cleared around 1 a.m. EDT.

April 27, 2021 – Microsoft: Around 6 a.m. EDT on April 27, Microsoft experienced an outage that affected its Teams users globally for about an hour and a half. The outage occurred outside of business hours for much of the Americas, but its global nature resulted in service disruption for users connecting from Asia and Europe. During the outage other Microsoft services continued to be reachable and available, but Teams services appeared unable to authenticate connection requests. Check out the ThousandEyes Internet Report for a deeper dive into the outage.

April 21, 2021 – Zayo Group: At 11:35 a.m. EDT on April 21, Zayo Group experienced an outage affecting partners and customers in countries including the US, China, Mexico, Canada, Hong Kong, Germany, Sweden, Brazil, India, and Singapore. It lasted around 24 minutes over a one-hour period and appeared to initially center on Zayo Group nodes in Atlanta, Georgia; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Denver, Colorado. A second occurrence started about 25 minutes later and lasted about four minutes. The outage expanded to include Zayo nodes located in Toronto, Canada, and that coincided with an expansion of affected countries and partners. Ten minutes after that, a third, three-minute occurrence centered on Zayo nodes in San Francisco, California, and affected a handful of countries. The final period of the outage was observed around 12:20 p.m. EDT centered on Zayo nodes in Phoenix, Arizona, and lasted 15 minutes. It appeared to affect only US-based customers and partners. The outage was cleared around 12:40 p.m. EDT.

April 20, 2021 – Internap: At 11:10 p.m. EDT on April 20, Internap experienced an outage that hit many of its downstream partners and customers in countries including the US, the UK, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Germany, and Hong Kong. It lasted 18 minutes and centered on Internap nodes in New York, New York. The outage peaked 10 minutes later and was cleared around 11:30 p.m. EDT.

April 14, 2021 – Zayo Group: Around 8:45 a.m. EDT on April 14, Zayo Group experienced an outage that affected some of its partners and customers in multiple countries. The outage lasted around 36 minutes, was first observed in Zayo nodes in Atlanta, Georgia. Five minutes later the outage expanded to include nodes in Seattle, Washington, and Chicago, Illinois, which expanded the area affected from just the US to include the UK, Russia, Singapore, India, and Canada. Five minutes after that, nodes in Houston, Texas, became involved and customers in Australia were affected.  Around 9:10 a.m. EDT, nodes located Denver, Colorado, were affected. This appeared to be the peak of the overall effects of the outage. Thirty minutes into the outage, the Denver node appeared to recover, reducing the number of affected countries and downstream partners. The outage was cleared around 9:25 a.m. EDT.

April 12, 2021 – TATA Communications (America): Around 4:46 p.m. EDT on April 12, TATA Communications (America) experienced an outage that impacted many of its downstream partners and customers in countries including the US, the UK, Australia, India, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Switzerland, Republic of Korea, and Canada. The outage, lasting around nine minutes, appeared to be centered on TATA nodes located in Tokyo, Japan. The outage was cleared around 5:10 p.m. EDT.

April 8, 2021 – NTT America: At 2:35 a.m. EDT on April 8, NTT America, experienced a 34-minute outage that affected some customers and downstream partners across countries including the US, Australia, Canada, France, India, Germany, UK, Switzerland, Japan, Hong Kong, and the Netherlands. The outage appeared initially to be centered on NTT America nodes in Newark, New Jersey, and Paris, France. The issue was cleared around 3:10 a.m. EDT.

April 6, 2021 – AT&T: About 10 p.m. EDT on April 6, AT&T experienced an outage on its network affecting customers in countries including the US, UK, Japan, Germany, Canada, Australia, India, Brazil, Republic of Korea, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. The outage centered on AT&T nodes in Phoenix, Arizona, lasted 24 minutes, and was cleared around 10:25 p.m EDT.

March 2021

March 31, 2021 – AT&T: Around 9:45 p.m. EDT on March 31, the AT&T network experienced an outage that impacted AT&T customers in multiple countries, including the US, UK, Japan, Germany, Canada, Australia, India, Brazil, Republic of Korea, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. IT centered on AT&T nodes in Phoenix, AZ, and lasted 18 minutes.

March 30, 2021 – Cogent Communications: At 7 a.m. EDT on March 30, Cogent Communications experienced a 44-minute outage that affected multiple downstream providers, as well as Cogent customers globally. The outage appeared to be centered on Cogent nodes in El Paso, TX, Washington DC, and Phoenix, AZ. Five minutes in, the number of Cogent nodes exhibiting outage conditions increased to include nodes located in Salt Lake City, UT, Houston, TX, San Francisco, CA, and Los Angeles, CA. Fifteen minutes in, just those in Los Angeles, CA, San Francisco, CA, and Washington DC still exhibited outage conditions. Twenty minutes in, nodes in San Francisco, CA, and Los Angeles, CA recovered, but the Washington DC nodes remained out for a further 24 minutes.

March 24, 2021 – Zayo Group: On March 24, Zayo Group experienced a 24-minute outage that affected some of its partners and customers in the US. It was observed around 2:35 p.m. EDT and appeared to center on Zayo Group nodes located in Los Angeles, CA. The outage was cleared around 3 p.m. EDT. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

March 23, 2021 – Level 3 Communications: There were two notable outages during the week. On March 23, Level 3 Communications experienced an outage that impacted multiple downstream partners and customers in multiple countries including the US, Malaysia, the UK, the Netherlands, Brazil, India, the Czech Republic, Canada, France, Japan, and Australia. The 18-minute outage was first observed around 11:30 a.m. EDT and appeared centered on Level 3 nodes located in London, UK. During the outage, the number of affected nodes in London incrementally decreased, with the outage cleared around 11:50 a.m. EDT. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

March 17, 2021 – Cloudflare: A notable outage occurred on March 17 when Cloudflare suffered an interruption that impacted its customer in the northwest Pacific region of the US and Canada. The 33-minute outage over a one-hour period, was first observed around 10:20 a.m. EDT and appeared to center on Cloudflare nodes located in Kansas City, MO. This first portion of the outage lasted around three minutes. Fifteen minutes later there was a 22-minute incident centered on Cloudflare nodes located in Seattle, WA. Forty minutes after the outage was first observed, two more were observed, again centering on Cloudflare nodes in Seattle, WA. It was cleared around 11:25 a.m. EDT. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

March 11, 2021 – NTT America: On March 11, NTT America experienced an outage affecting some of its customers and downstream partners across countries including, the US, Australia, Canada, France, India, Germany, UK, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. The 20-minute outage was first observed around 3:05 p.m. EST and appeared to be centered on NTT America nodes located in Ashburn, VA, and Los Angeles, CA. Five minutes into the outage, the countries affected were reduced to just the US, UK, the Netherlands, and Germany, accessing downstream NTT networks. Five minutes later the outage cleared at the Ashburn, VA, node leaving just the node in Los Angeles, CA, exhibiting outage conditions. That outage was cleared around 3:30 p.m. EST. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

March 10, 2021 – Dynamic Network Services: On March 10, Dynamic Network Services experienced an interruption that resulted in DNS-resolution degradation on their Dyn Managed DNS service. The disruption affected users in countries including the UK, South Africa, Singapore, Australia, Ireland, France, Spain, and Portugal. The 55-minute outage was first observed around 6:40 p.m. EST and appeared to be centered on Dyn nodes located in London, UK. Twenty minutes later, a second Dyn node in Manchester, NH, showed outage conditions. The appearance of this second Dyn node coincided with a Dyn notification that their engineers had identified the issue and had implemented a fix. Twenty-five minutes into the outage, only the Dyn node located in London, UK, was exhibiting outage conditions and the number of affected services began to reduce, indicating the service was recovering. The outage was cleared around 7:35 p.m. EST. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

March 3, 2021 – UUNET/Verizon: There were two notable outages during the week. On March 3, UUNET/Verizon experienced an outage that impacted many of its peers and customers, including, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Nomura, Samsung, and Zoom. The outage, lasting around 36 minutes over a 75 minute period, was first observed around 9:00 a.m. EST and appeared to center on UUNET/Verizon nodes in Philadelphia, PA, and Ashburn, VA. This initial part of the outage lasted around 4 minutes and appeared to have a cascading impact on Cogent infrastructure located in New York, NY, and affected Cogent’s path to the JP Morgan Chase network. Approximately five minutes after the initial outage cleared, a second was observed that lasted around 13 minutes. It was observed on UUNET/Verizon nodes located in Seattle, WA and Dallas, TX, as well as appearing to have a cascading impact in Level 3 Communications infrastructure located in Seattle, WA, and affecting Level 3 customers and partners in Canada. Five minutes into this second period, the Level 3 infrastructure direct outage cleared and after another five minutes, the only UUNET/Verizon nodes exhibiting the issue were located in Dallas, TX. Around 9:50 a.m. EST, the third occurrence of the outage was observed 20 minutes after the second. This outage lasted around 19 minutes and was initially focused on UUNET/Verizon infrastructure in Dallas, TX. Five minutes into the third period of the outage, UUNET/Verizon infrastructure exhibiting problems expanded to include Seattle, WA. Approximately 10 minutes into this third period of the outage, UUNET/Verizon infrastructure located in San Jose, CA was added to those in Seattle, WA, and Dallas, TX. At around 10:10 AM ET, the UUNET/Verizon infrastructure located in San Jose, CA, was the only infrastructure exhibiting issues. The outage was cleared  around 10:15 AM ET. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

March 3, 2021 – PCCW: On March 3, PCCW experienced an outage affecting some of its U.S. customers and networks, including Flagstar Bank, Target, Bloomberg, Morgan Stanley, and Dell. The outage lasted around 31 minutes and was divided into three periods over an hour and 20 minutes. The outage was first observed around 8:45 a.m. EST and appeared to center on PCCW infrastructure located in Ashburn VA. The first period of the outage lasted around 9 minutes, before recurring 15 minutes later, again centered on PCCW infrastructure located in Ashburn, VA. This second outage lasted around 19 minutes. The third period was observed 30 minutes after the second ended and lasted around 9 minutes. The outage was cleared around 10:05 a.m. EST.

February 2021

February 25, 2021 – Hurricane Electric: On Feb. 25, Hurricane Electric experienced an outage that affected users across inthe US, UK, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Germany, Canada, Japan, Spain and Brazil. The outage, lasting around 36 minutes over a 45-minute period, was divided into two events. The first was observed around 1:40 a.m. EST on Hurricane Electric infrastructure in Singapore and Hong Kong. It lasted 24 minutes and initially cleared around 2:05 a.m. EST, but five minutes later, around 2:10 a.m. EST, a node in Marseille, France, was affected and created issues for around 12 minutes. The outage affected access to customer networks including Credit Suisse, Proctor and Gamble, DBS, Shell, and Bank of America. The issue was cleared around 2:25 a.m. EST. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

February 24, 2021 – Comcast Communications: On Feb. 24, Comcast Communications experienced an outage that affected peers and customers in the US, Canada, and the Netherlands. The outage, lasting around 14 minutes, was first observed around 11 p.m. EST and appeared to be centered on Comcast nodes in Newark, NJ, and affected access to customers including CBS, NBC, Bloomberg, and JP Morgan Chase. Ten minutes into the outage, the radius of the disruption expanded to include Comcast nodes in New York, NY, Dallas, TX, Chicago, IL, and Boston, MA. It affected customers in more countries including the US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, and the Netherlands. The outage was cleared around 11:15 p.m. EST. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

February 23, 2021 – LinkedIn: On Feb. 23, LinkedIn experienced a service disruption affecting its mobile and desktop global user base. The outage was first observed around 1:50 p.m. EST, with users attempting to connect to LinkedIn receiving server-unavailable error messages. Around 45 minutes later, services to some regions began to return, although others were still unable to use the services. After another 45 minutes, the server unavailable messages were replaced with content not available errors. The total disruption lasted around two hours, during which no network issues were observed connecting to LinkedIn web servers, further indicating the issue was application related. Service was restored around 3:40 p.m. EST. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

February 18, 2021 – GTT Communications: On Feb.18, GTT Communications experienced an outage that affected some of its partners and customers in the US. It lasted around 14 minutes, was first observed around 4:30 a.m. EST, and appeared to center on GTT nodes in Los Angeles, CA, affecting customer networks including Ford Motor Company, Guaranteed Rate and Loanet. The outage was cleared around 4:45 a.m. EST. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

February 16, 2021 – Level 3 Communications: On Feb. 16, Level 3 Communications experienced a notable outage that affected multiple downstream partners and customers in countries including the US, Canada, Argentina, Mexico, and the UK. First observed around 11:40 a.m. EST, the outage lasted around 36 minutes over a one-hour period and affected access to customers including Bank of America, TiVo, and Lending Tree. The first minutes of the outage appeared to center on Level 3 nodes in San Francisco, CA, affecting only the U.S. and Canada. Ten minutes into the outage, nodes in Boston, MA, became involved, and at this point the impact spread to include the other countries. Five minutes after that, the outage in the San Francisco node cleared leaving just the Boston infrastructure in an outage condition. Twenty-four minutes after the outage was first observed it appeared to clear. Fifteen minutes later the outage reappeared, this time centered on nodes in San Francisco, Salt Lake City, UT, and Portland, OR. This second episode lasted for four minutes and was followed by two more four-minute outages each five minutes apart. The outage was cleared around 12:45 p.m. EST. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

February 11, 2021 – AT&T: Around 4:30 a.m. EST on Feb. 11, AT&T suffered an outage centered in Washington, D.C., followed by issues in Tulsa, OK, and San Antonio, TX. that affected customers including some in the US, Germany, and Australia. Five minutes later only Washington, DC, and Tulsa, OK, nodes were involved and five minutes after that, just those in Washington, DC. Customer networks affected included J.P. Morgan Chase, Jeffries Group, Travelers Property Casualty, and ConocoPhillips. The outage lasted 14 minutes and was cleared at around 4:45 a.m. EST. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

February 11, 2021 – Cogent Communications: On Feb. 11, Cogent Communications experienced a series of outages over a period of 3 hours and 38 minutes that affected downstream providers as well as Cogent customers globally. The outage lasted a total of 43 minutes and was first observed around 1:07 a.m. EST centered on Cogent nodes in San Francisco, CA. This initial outage lasted around two minutes, and the Cogent environment was then stable for 43 minutes before experiencing a series of four-minute outages observed on Cogent nodes in Dallas, TX and Phoenix, AZ. An hour and a half after the initial outage was observed, a four-minute outage was observed centering on Cogent nodes located in Newark, NJ. The outage reappeared 25 minutes later, extending the list of affected nodes to locations including San Francisco, CA, Atlanta, GA, Cleveland ,OH, New York, NY, and Washington D.C. Less than an hour later, a 19-minute outage affected nodes including Miami, FL, Austin, TX, El Paso, TX, Houston, TX, San Jose, CA, Los Angeles, CA, and Las Vegas, NV. Customer networks affected included Ford Motor Company, Oracle, Home Depot, and TikTok. The outage was cleared at around 4:45 a.m. EST. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

February 2, 2021 – TATA Communications (America): On Feb. 2, TATA Communications (America), experienced an outage that affected some of its downstream partners and customers in countries including the US. It was first observed around 1:30 a.m. ET as TATA nodes located in Los Angeles, CA, appeared to show outage conditions. After five minutes, other nodes located in Seville, Spain, and Singapore, were affected. As the number of affected nodes increased, so did the number of customer networks affected, including Wells Fargo, Reuters, Twitter, and Salesforce. The outage lasted around 18 minutes across a half hour period and was cleared around 2 a.m. ET. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

February 1, 2021 – Hurricane Electric: Around 1:40 a.m. on Feb. 1, Hurricane Electric experienced an outage affecting countries including the US, New Zealand, and Brazil. The outage was centered on Hurricane Electric infrastructure in Los Angeles, CA. After five minutes, the number of  interfaces affected there reduced and appeared to affect users in the US only. The outage lasted around nine minutes and affected customers including Disney Streaming and LinkedIn. The issue was cleared around 1:50 a.m. ET. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

January 2021

January 26, 2021 – Comcast: On Jan. 26, Comcast suffered a 24-minute outage first observed around 12 a.m. ET that appeared to be centered at Comcast nodes in Newark, NJ, affecting access to customer networks including Amazon, Bloomberg and CBS. At 20 minutes into the outage, disruption was also observed in a New York, NY, node. The outage affected multiple Comcast peers and customers, and it was cleared around 12:25 a.m. ET. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

January 26, 2021 – Verizon: On Jan 26 Verizon experienced an outage that affected East Coast customers ability to access services including Slack, Zoom, Amazon and Google Traffic disruption was observed around 11:30 a.m. ET across multiple nodes concentrated along the US Verizon backbone. During the outage Verizon indicated a fiber cut affected service delivery in the Brooklyn, NY, area but is not believed directly related to the larger outage. Network services started to stabilize around 12:30 p.m. ET. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

January 20, 2021 – Level 3 Communications: On Jan. 20, Level 3 Communications experienced an outage affecting downstream partners and customers in countries including the US, South Africa, the U.K., Turkey, Russia, New Zealand, and Australia. The outage was first observed around 12:20 p.m. ET and lasted about 34 minutes. It appeared centered on Level 3 nodes in Washington, DC, and affected customers including J.P. Morgan Chase, Visa International, and Oracle. IT was cleared around 12:55 p.m. ET. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

January 18, 2021 – TATA Communications (America): On Jan.18, TATA Communications (America), experienced an outage affecting many of its downstream partners and customers in multiple countries including the US, the UK, Australia, India, Singapore, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan and Canada. The outage was first observed around 7:40 a.m. ET. TATA nodes located in Newark, NJ; New York, NY; Frankfurt, Germany; London, England; Singapore; Paris, France; and Buckinghamshire, England all appeared to show outage conditions. After five minutes, TATA nodes located in Chicago, IL; San Jose, CA; Seville, Spain; Tokyo, Japan; and Hong Kong were affected. As the number of TATA nodes affected increased, so did the number of customer networks affected, including Wells Fargo, Reuters, Oracle, and Amazon. The outage lasted around 34 minutes and was cleared around 8:15 a.m.ET. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

January 13, 2021 – AT&T: On January 13, AT&T experienced an outage that affected customers in multiple countries, including the US, UK, Japan, Germany, Canada, Australia, India, and the Netherlands. The outage started around 9:25 p.m. ET and centered on AT&T nodes located in Phoenix, AZ, and last 23 minutes, and was cleared around 9:50 p.m. ET. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

January 13, 2021 – Microsoft: On January 13, Microsoft experienced an outage that affected some downstream partners and access to services running in Microsoft environments. The 12-minute outage was first observed around 12:15 a.m. ET and occurred in three four-minute occurrences over a 30-minute period. IT centered in Microsoft nodes in Des Moines, IA. It was cleared around 12:45 a.m. ET. Given the timing and uniform pattern of the outage, it is likely to have been an automated maintenance process. Click here for an interactive view of the outage.

January 7, 2021 – Cogent Communications: On Jan. 7, Cogent Communications experienced an outage at 4:40 p.m. that lasted just under an hour and that affected downstream providers and Cogent customers globally. It consisted of four outage occurrences over a two-hour period, the first of which centered on Cogent nodes in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, mainly affecting European countries. Five later, Cogent nodes in Washington, DC, also exhibited outage conditions. At this point the Amsterdam nodes recovered, but the Washington D.C. nodes stayed down for another 35 minutes. Thirty-five minutes after the first outage cleared, the second outage was observed,  centering on nodes in Oakland, CA. It lasted four minutes and affected only customers in the US. This was repeated five minutes later, this time lasting around three minutes. Following a five minute break, a final four-minute outage was observed, this time centering on Cogent nodes in Las Vegas, NV, and Oakland, CA. The outage affected access to services including Amazon, Yandex (a Russian based search engine), Oracle, and Sberbank (a state-owned Russian banking and financial services company). The outage was cleared around 6:35 p.m. EST. Click here for an Interactive view of the outage.

January 4, 2021 – Slack: On Jan. 4, Slack experienced an outage at 10 a.m. EST that lasted until after 1:40 p.m. It affected customers worldwide, with many users unable to login, send or receive messages, or to place or answer calls. Slack identified the cause  as insufficient router capacity in its cloud-provider network to meet customer demand. Starting at 11:15 a.m. EST Slack implemented a fix, and many customers could use the service again by 12:15 p.m. Slack announced messaging service restoration at 1:40 p.m. EST, although it’s calendar integration features took longer to restore.

That’s it for 2021 (if you can call dozens of significant outages “it”). You may also be interested in our list of 2020 network and cloud provider outages too.