What led to internet outage that took down some major websites on July 22? Check out why

A global outage of over 29,000 websites was reported on Thursday, July 22, 2021. Some of the world's biggest and most popular brands also faced this issue, including Amazon, Sony PlayStation Network, Airtel, Instagram, Twitter, Microsoft and more. It was due to a service disruption at Akamai, which is a content delivery and cloud services provider. Consequently, all the portals that use Akamai services went down. The list of websites that went down also includes several Indian names such as BSNL, SBI, Zomato, Paytm and Swiggy.

Global outage experienced due to interruption at Akamai, a content delivery service provider

Large websites and portals use content delivery systems to handle their traffic 

Most websites on the internet use content delivery networks or other forms of cloud services to seamlessly deliver various forms of content to a viewer/user/customer. To do so, websites like Amazon hire content delivery networks like Akamai. In such a system, websites partially depend upon the delivery network's services to run their platforms in real-time. If and when a delivery network faces a temporary outage or maintenance, all the websites and portals that use its services also experience an outage, which is what happened on July 22, 2021.

A temporary software update triggered a bug within Akamai's DNS

It was a temporary interruption at Akamai that caused a global outage for as many as 29,000 websites. Akamai acknowledged the issue and informed that a configuration update triggered a bug in Domain Name System or DNS. It is responsible for directing browsers to websites. Akamai also adds that the disruption in content delivery systems lasted up to an hour and was fixed upon rolling back the software configuration update. In addition to accepting the outage, Akamai also informs that the interruption was not caused due to a cyberattack on the firm.

The company handles a major portion of global web traffic 

The Cambridge-based company handles about 15-30% of the world's total digital web traffic, including some of the most popular brands and companies in the world. By doing so, the content delivery network provider generated more than $3 billion in the year 2020. Since the demand for digital platforms and content delivery systems have increased during the pandemic, more and more large scale enterprises are turning towards such companies that allow them to optimize their digital network for better delivery of content.