Major websites were down globally and if you were wondering if it was your internet, no, it wasn’t just you. On July 22, web platforms such as that of SBI, Amazon, Paytm and YouTube suffered a massive outage.

Moreover, websites of Airbnb, HBO, Hotstar, FedEx, Delta Airlines and PlayStation Network also experienced downtime briefly, throwing several people across the world off their groove and made them double check their own internet connection.

The outage was caused due to a service glitch from Akamai technologies, a company that provides cloud services and cybersecurity to these platforms.

Contents hide
1. Details
2. What all services were down?
3. Zomato, Paytm Tweets Regular Updates
4. What caused the issue?
5. What is Edge DNS?
6. All is well that ends well!

Details

The whole world is gradually inching its way to a future where having a life is synonymous to staying digitally connected. But at times, due to technical glitches, the divide between life and internet becomes larger. In one such incident, significant slice of the internet suffered an outage on July 22, Thursday.

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What all services were down?

Internet lurking regulars saw many of their favorite websites, apps and services suffering a downtime. This included world majors such as UPS, FedEx, PlayStation Network, HBO and Airbnb. Google – which itself is used to check if a connection has been made to the internet or not – saw its apps suffering outage. This included video sharing platform YouTube. While isolated outages are not unheard of, the downtime people faced last evening, was unprecedented.

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Zomato, Paytm Tweets Regular Updates

Meanwhile, back at home in India, food delivery platform Zomato, payment major Paytm also suffered an outage for a brief period of time. Taking to Twitter, Zomato wrote, “Our app is down, due to a widespread Akamai outage. Our teams are working to ensure all orders placed are delivered asap.”

After a brief period of time, when the issue was resolved for Zomato, it again confirmed being live and active by taking to Twitter and writing, “Phew! We are back!”

Payment major Paytm too took to Twitter and gave its first update by tweeting, “Update: Some Paytm services are affected due to global outage at Akamai. We are actively working towards a resolution.” Much like Zomato – Paytm too was back online after a brief period of time and confirmed the news by tweeting, “Update 2: All our services are back online and working smoothly like before.”

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What caused the issue?

The cause of the outage can be traced back to Akamai – a network and content delivery service giant that caters its services to several major internet companies across the world. On July 22, the company reported its first issue at 11 A.M. EST with its Edge DNS.

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What is Edge DNS?

According to Akamai, Edge DNS is a “DNS service that moves your DNS resolution from your premises or data centers to the Akamai Intelligent Edge. Edge DNS is architected for nonstop DNS availability and high performance, even through the largest DDoS attacks.”

In a nutshell, the service keeps websites, services and applications run smoothly and securely. DNS services can be considered like the bloodline in a human body, when everything flows well, all the organs work well. When there’s a small issue, organs at different places start showing issues.

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All is well that ends well!

It should be noted that Akamai did not confirm or reveal the cause of the major internet outage, but quickly implemented a fix. Taking to Twitter, Akamai tweeted, ” Akamai is experiencing a service disruption. We are actively investigating the issue and will provide an update in 30 minutes.”

It then set out multiple updates in the form of tweets.