Netflix blames Amazon for Xmas outage
December 27, 2012
A failure in Amazon cloud services hit Netflix users in the US, Canada and Latin America on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day claims the online movie rental company.
The failure affected various devices ranging from gaming consoles such as the Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3 to Blu-ray DVD players according to Netflix. Some other devices were not affected.
According to Reuters, Netflix said the issue was the result of an outage at an Amazon Web Services’ cloud centre in Virginia and started at about 12:30 p.m. PST on Monday and was fully restored before 8:00 a.m. PST Tuesday morning, although streaming was available for most users by 11:00 p.m. PST on Monday.
The event marks the latest in a series of outages from Amazon Web Services, with one occurring in April of last year that knocked out such sites as Reddit and Foursquare.
“We are investigating exactly what happened and how it could have been prevented,” Netflix said. “We are happy that people opening gifts of Netflix or Netflix capable devices can watch TV shows and movies and apologise for any inconvenience caused.”