5 Common Cloud Service Disruptions and How to Avoid Them

The recent outage of Amazon Web Services (AWS) on June 13th affected thousands of users, including the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Boston Globe. While the issue has been resolved, it’s important to understand the potential risks and how to avoid them. Here are five common cloud service disruptions and what you can do to prevent them:

1. Capacity Management Issues According to Amazon, the recent AWS outage was caused by a subsystem responsible for capacity management for AWS Lambda. This caused errors directly for customers and indirectly through the use by other AWS services. To avoid this issue, it’s important to regularly monitor your capacity and ensure that you have enough resources to handle your workload.
2. Cyber Attacks Cyber attacks can cause major disruptions to cloud services, as seen in the recent Colonial Pipeline hack. To prevent this, it’s important to have strong security measures in place, such as multi-factor authentication and regular security audits.
3. Natural Disasters Natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes can cause power outages and damage to data centers, leading to cloud service disruptions. To mitigate this risk, consider using multiple data centers in different geographic locations to ensure redundancy and backup.
4. Human Error Human error can also cause cloud service disruptions, such as accidentally deleting important data or misconfiguring servers. To prevent this, ensure that your team is properly trained and follows best practices for cloud management.
5. Software Bugs Software bugs can cause unexpected issues and disruptions to cloud services. To avoid this, regularly update your software and perform thorough testing before deploying any changes.

By understanding these common cloud service disruptions and taking steps to prevent them, you can ensure that your business is prepared for any potential issues. Additionally, consider using parametric insurance to protect your business from financial losses due to cloud service disruptions. With Riskwolf, you can turn real-time data into insurance and build and operate parametric insurance at scale. Contact us today to learn more.

(Source: Reuters)