When AWS outage struck on Monday, October 20, 2025, it immediately rattled Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., and sent shockwaves through every service that runs on Amazon’s cloud – from Instructure’s Canvas learning platform to Zoom Video Communications, Adobe Inc., and a host of other SaaS tools. The incident unfolded in the early morning hours (UTC), and the AWS health dashboard, managed from Seattle, Washington, showed the problem "showing signs of recovery" by the afternoon, yet lingering errors persisted for Canvas users across the 71,000‑strong Rutgers community. The outage underscored how deeply education, business and everyday digital life now depend on a single cloud provider.
Scope of the Outage
According to the Rutgers University Office of Information Technology (OIT) alert posted at 08:13 UTC, the disruption touched every continent where AWS hosts workloads. While the exact AWS regions affected were not disclosed, the OIT message noted error spikes on services such as Canvas, Zoom, Grammarly, Kaltura, Smartsheet, Adobe Creative Cloud, Cisco Secure Endpoint and ArcGIS. The AWS Health Dashboard listed the incident as a "major service interruption" with a timestamp of 2025‑10‑20T07:45:00Z, marking it as one of the most widespread events in the platform’s 12‑month log.
How Universities Felt the Impact
Rutgers’ OIT described the fallout in stark terms: "A major AWS outage began this morning, affecting numerous services worldwide. Users encountered error messages when trying to access Canvas, Zoom, and Grammarly." The university’s IT staff fielded hundreds of tickets within the first two hours, with many students unable to submit assignments or join virtual lectures. One senior engineering student, who asked to remain anonymous, said, "I was mid‑lab, and the Canvas page just crashed. It felt like the whole semester was on pause."
Responses from AWS and Affected Companies
Amazon’s public‑facing communications were limited to a brief statement on the AWS Health Dashboard: "We are still investigating the incident and are working to restore services. Current status shows signs of recovery." In parallel, Instructure posted a status update on its own site, confirming Canvas was still displaying error messages for some users and promising continuous monitoring.
- Zoom’s status page reported “intermittent connectivity issues” but did not specify an outage window.
- Adobe’s Twitter feed acknowledged “temporary access problems for Creative Cloud apps due to a backend issue.”
- Grammarly’s support center cited “increased latency on document processing.”
These coordinated messages helped keep customers informed, but the lack of a clear technical root cause left many wondering what went wrong behind the scenes.
What This Means for Cloud Dependence
The incident reignited a long‑standing debate about single‑vendor reliance. Enterprises, especially educational institutions, often bundle dozens of critical services onto a single cloud provider to simplify procurement and lower costs. Yet when that provider stumbles, the ripple effects can halt teaching, research and business operations in minutes. A 2023 Gartner survey found that 68 % of universities rate cloud reliability as their top IT priority – a figure that now feels prophetic.
Looking Ahead: Prevention and Monitoring
Rutgers OIT has announced plans to diversify its cloud footprint, exploring multi‑cloud strategies that involve Azure and Google Cloud for backup workloads. Meanwhile, AWS is expected to release a post‑mortem report in the coming weeks, which should shed light on whether the outage stemmed from a network segment, a storage subsystem, or a software deployment error. For now, the university advises students to download critical course materials and keep an eye on both the AWS Health Dashboard and the Instructure status page for real‑time updates.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the outage affect students at Rutgers?
Students experienced login failures on Canvas, missed Zoom class connections and were unable to submit assignments via Grammarly or Adobe tools. The university’s OIT directed them to temporary offline resources and advised checking the AWS Health Dashboard for restoration updates.
What caused the AWS outage?
AWS has not disclosed a detailed cause yet. Their statement said the incident is still under investigation, and a full technical post‑mortem is expected in the weeks ahead.
Which other companies were impacted?
Beyond Rutgers, services from Zoom Video Communications, Grammarly, Kaltura, Smartsheet, Adobe Inc., Cisco Systems and Esri (ArcGIS) reported degraded performance or temporary outages, illustrating the breadth of AWS’s customer base.
What steps are being taken to prevent future disruptions?
Rutgers OIT is evaluating a multi‑cloud approach to distribute critical workloads across Azure and Google Cloud. AWS, on its part, typically enhances redundancy and will likely refine monitoring after the post‑mortem.
When can users expect full service restoration?
As of the afternoon of October 20, 2025, the AWS Health Dashboard showed "signs of recovery," but Canvas still displayed errors. Users should monitor the AWS and Instructure status pages for the latest updates; a definitive resolution timeline has not been provided.