Website services worldwide were impacted on Monday after a problem at Amazon Web Services. The glitch, which started around 3 a.m., left millions of people unable to use apps and thousands of companies without systems to run their businesses.
JD’s Hamburgers was among the businesses worldwide impacted by a major outage at Amazon Web Services.
Gigi Howell is Westland Hospitality’s operating partner. She said she was awakened to the news.
“I woke up to a phone call that the systems were down here,” said Howell. “It’s very stressful when you hear that the system is down and your day hasn’t started yet and it’s Monday.”
For the restaurant, it meant credit cards were not an option. They had to pivot quickly.
“We go to handwritten tickets sometimes, whatever you need to do. We call it a crash kit, so if the system does crash, we’re kind of ready,” Howell said.
Amazon Web Services said the outage was caused by a problem with one of its core database products. Snapchat, fast-food restaurant apps, Ring doorbell cameras, and some news organizations were impacted.
“You know, there’s been some instances like what happened today where you think, ‘Man, we are vulnerable, we are very vulnerable,” said Howell.
The Downdetector, a site providing real-time information, received more than 6 million reports about offline sites and services.
Howell said the system at JD’s Hamburgers was back up by Monday evening, but there will be a residual impact.
“We might have to put everything in by hand this evening for the whole day,” she said.
Still, she’s taking it in stride.
“I don’t think there’s any other way you can. It just makes the day worse if you do that,” she said. “We have far more highs than we do lows.”
