TL;DR
AWS introduced a DNS feature intended to let customers make DNS changes within 60 minutes of a disruption in its US East region, responding to customer requests for stronger continuity and compliance options. The change aims to reduce the cloud provider’s contribution to outages, but a 60-minute recovery objective still leaves room for significant service impacts.
What happened
AWS announced a new DNS capability designed to let customers effect DNS changes during service disruptions in the US East cloud region. The company framed the change as a response to customer demands for greater DNS resilience to support business continuity and regulatory obligations, particularly from sectors such as banking, FinTech and SaaS that need to provision standby resources or reroute traffic in a crisis. AWS says the feature is intended to provide a 60-minute recovery time objective (RTO) for DNS changes during US East incidents. The move follows a string of high-profile problems affecting US East in recent years, including a DynamoDB incident on October 20 and other regional failures in 2021 and 2023. Observers note that while the capability could reduce some impact, a 60-minute window still allows room for large-scale outages if the RTO is not met.
Why it matters
- Gives regulated industries a targeted way to make DNS changes during US East outages, which could help meet continuity and compliance needs.
- Could shorten the time required to redirect traffic or stand up failover resources in certain disruption scenarios.
- Acknowledges and partly mitigates the recurring role of the DNS and the US East region in major internet outages.
- A 60-minute RTO still permits substantial service disruption, so risk to dependent applications remains significant.
Key facts
- The new AWS feature is intended to support DNS changes during disruptions in the US East region.
- AWS describes the capability as providing a 60-minute recovery time objective (RTO) for those DNS changes.
- Customers in banking, FinTech and SaaS sectors were cited as drivers for the capability due to business continuity and regulatory concerns.
- AWS announced the change in a company post referencing customer requests for additional DNS resilience.
- The announcement follows several notable US East incidents, including a DynamoDB incident on October 20 and other outages in 2021 and 2023.
- Analyst firm Gartner warned in 2022 that US East represents a weak point for handling crises, a view referenced in coverage of the new capability.
- AWS has previously argued that US East’s enormous scale stresses services more than smaller regions, while not being inherently less reliable.
What to watch next
- Whether AWS can consistently meet the 60-minute RTO in real-world US East incidents (not confirmed in the source).
- Adoption rates among regulated customers who need faster DNS-driven failover (not confirmed in the source).
- Any follow-up changes or architectural updates to US East intended to reduce regional fragility (not confirmed in the source).
Quick glossary
- DNS: Domain Name System; translates human-readable domain names into IP addresses that computers use to locate services on the internet.
- RTO: Recovery Time Objective; a target time window within which systems or services should be restored after an outage.
- Cloud region: A geographic area containing one or more data centers where a cloud provider offers compute and storage services.
- Standby resources: Preprovisioned or quickly provisionable compute, storage, or networking capacity intended to take over when primary resources become unavailable.
Reader FAQ
What exactly did AWS announce?
A DNS capability intended to let customers make DNS changes within 60 minutes of a disruption in the US East region.
Who is this feature aimed at?
AWS cited customers in regulated industries such as banking, FinTech and SaaS as primary users of the capability.
Does this prevent major outages entirely?
Not confirmed in the source; the company says the feature targets a 60-minute RTO, but coverage notes that this still allows for significant outages.
Is there a timeline for rollout or broad availability?
Not confirmed in the source.
PAAS + IAAS 24 AWS builds a DNS backstop to allow changes when its notoriously flaky US East region wobbles 60-minute RTO means big outages can still happen Simon Sharwood…
Sources
- AWS builds a DNS backstop to allow changes when its notoriously flaky US East region wobbles
- AWS builds DNS backstop for times flaky US East region fails
- Amazon Route 53 launches Accelerated recovery for …
- AWS Introduces DNS Failover for US East Region …
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