Software-as-a-service providers including Slack, Trello, Asana, and Smartsheet saw disruptions after API and network issues hit Amazon Web Services’ U.S. data center. Credit: Matejmo / Getty Images The Tuesday outage at an Amazon Web Services data center affected services from several collaboration software vendors, highlighting how reliant companies have become on cloud providers for a variety of workplace tools. Asana, Smartsheet, Trello, and Slack — all of which host their services on the AWS cloud — reported problems following the AWS outage. Asana and Smartsheet said users were unable to access services for around two hours, while Trello experienced disruption to its “email to board” and “dashcards” features. Slack reported issues with its audio chatroom “huddles” feature, email integrations, and file uploads Tuesday, but did not specify the disruptions were due to the AWS outage. (Slack declined to comment on whether the outage was the cause of its service issues.) AWS’ own Chime video meeting app was also affected, the company said. Several other core AWS services were offline from roughly 11 a.m. ET to 6 p.m. ET Tuesday — the bulk of the workday for companies affected. Those services included the company’s Elastic Compute and DynamoDB cloud tools, which are used to host customer applications. The outage affected APIs at AWS’ US East 1 data center, the root cause related to “an impairment of several network devices,” AWS said on its service status page. While Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) vendors typically provide high levels of uptime, outages are not uncommon. A DNS issue caused connectivity problems for a small number of Slack users in September, for example, while Microsoft Teams, which is hosted on Microsoft’s Azure cloud, was knocked offline for multiple hours on two occasions in April, following a four-hour outage in March. Google, which runs its Workspace collaborative apps on its own cloud infrastructure, reported an outage that affected access to Gmail, Google Chat, and other tools for users in Europe just last month. These outages are generally resolved within a few hours, but the disruption that business users can face when unable to connect underlines the importance now of cloud software for many workers. This has been even more evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, with many collaboration vendors reporting substantial increases in users over the last 18 months as many businesses rushed to support remote work. “SaaS collaboration providers have significantly expanded their footprint in recent years; this has placed a spotlight on their growth, overshadowing the risks that come with relying on cloud-based technology vendors,” said Raúl Castañón, senior analyst at 451 Research, a division of S&P Global Market Intelligence. “While it’s unlikely that the outage will result in significant customer losses for cloud-based technology vendors, it will put pressure on them to provide mechanisms to minimize or eliminate these risks.” Related content news analysis Workers with AI skills are getting these pay cash premiums As AI deployments become more critical to digital transformation projects, organizations are struggling to find skilled workers to support the new technology, so they're paying premiums for prospective hires or current employees who obtain the n By Lucas Mearian May 01, 2024 7 mins Generative AI IT Jobs IT Skills news Atlassian Rovo brings AI smarts to enterprise search With Rovo, the company looks to expand existing search capabilities in its products, tapping into documents held in third-party apps and using generative AI to provide a natural language interface. By Matthew Finnegan May 01, 2024 5 mins Atlassian Chatbots Generative AI news Mosyle and Fleet bring new device management options to Apple enterprise Apple's growing enterprise market share is generating tons of opportunity for the company's partners in the device management market. Their approaches reflect the diversity of use. By Jonny Evans May 01, 2024 4 mins Apple Mobile Device Management Mobile Security tip 13 tricks for more efficient Android messaging Save time and communicate more effectively with these easy-to-miss advanced options for Google's Android Messages app. By JR Raphael May 01, 2024 18 mins Smartphones Google Mobile Apps Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe