The Guardian’s view on the cloud meltdown: The outage that showed who really runs the internet | Editorial
An power failure Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Monday took down apps and websites around the world, affecting more than 2,000 companies and leaving millions of users unable to access services like Snapchat, Roblox, Signal, Duolingo and even Amazon’s own operations. Removing technology from our technology-dependent existence has sent workers home and delayed exams. the Shatterany I continue 15 hours, highlighted how dependent our digital lives are on a small number of cloud providers – and how many everyday systems are vulnerable to a single failure.
If data is the new oil, cloud computing is the pipeline, the refinery, the tanker fleet, and, increasingly, the pump as well. The big three – AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud – account For 60% of global cloud computing. They own the networks and cables that transmit data across the world. Not only do their platforms turn data into useful insights, they do so using proprietary tools that make switching providers expensive and complicated. Finally, through Amazon Alexa, Google Workspace, and Microsoft 365, they are also shaping how people interact with data and services.
It’s easy to forget that all information processing must take place in buildings full of servers connected to the Internet via fiber optic cables. The largest and most important Amazon cloud region, known as US-EAST-1, is located in northern Virginia and is home to… 70% of the world’s Internet traffic. The role Virginia plays in Internet traffic is comparable to the Strait of Hormuz for oil tankers – the narrow chokepoint through which vital commerce flows. It is vulnerable not only to technical errors, but also to cyberattacks and geopolitical sabotage terrorism. This was the block The third major outage in five yearsEach of which leads to the collapse of the Internet.
In a paper From University College London, Francesca Pria, Paul Timmers and Fausto Gernoni warn that cloud computing is the power grid of the 21st century economy. Europe’s public services, industrial innovation and AI ambitions are increasingly built on a digital backbone that it does not own, regulate or even fully understand. In this regard, this week’s power outage is not just a technical problem. It’s a warning shot.
The authors recommend scaling up sovereign cloud infrastructure, diversifying hardware supply chains, and developing proprietary standards. It is difficult to claim that Europe and the United Kingdom are doing otherwise: continuing in this vein risks the continent becoming a colony in the digital empire of the United States – or China. Nations are already moving. India and Brazil It prioritizes the development of public digital systems to reduce dependence on foreign cloud providers. Germany and France have I paid Gaia-X, a European framework for secure cloud services. supermarket Lidl It is building its own cloud technology. It is worrying that Britain does not have coherent Cloud strategy, leaving its systems Take control By AWS and Microsoft.
In a debate organized by UCL this summer, Mike Brackenwho ran the UK’s government digital service, disputed ownership being an issue. He said that by adopting open standards, Britain could gain all the benefits of cloud computing without having to reinvent the wheel. But this risks downplaying the strategic vulnerabilities that come from relying on foreign-owned cloud giants. Sovereignty is not merely the right to choose policy. It is the ability to perform them without asking permission. True flexibility means not relying on foreign servers to keep passengers traveling; NHS hospitals Run, Banking Apps work – and government services are online.