Why isn't Amazon.com impacted by AWS outages?

Multi-region failover?

I was having trouble with the store this morning.

Some functions were down, e.g. order history.

It was impacted. Amazon.com was unusable for me this morning. All I could get loaded was the header section and a blank page saying "Something went wrong."

No idea if it's related, but this is the first time I've seen "We're sorry, Customer Service chat and phone lines are not currently available at the moment."

I've been getting message all morning about delivery delays. All were supposed to be delivered today and now they're anywhere between tomorrow and thursday.

It really depends on which data center you're connecting to, a few regions in the US were impacted earlier this morning.

I can't get any filtering functionality right now. The question isn't "why wasn't it impacted" and more like, why is it still degraded?

Hello everyone

I'm the founder of a project called *iKIP* — a triple communication phone concept that integrates *GSM, VoIP, and Mesh* communication in one unified interface.

The goal: Create a *semi-functional virtual prototype* (software only) that demonstrates the core interactions: - GSM: simulated standard cellular calls - VoIP: simulated internet-based calls using WebRTC or similar - Mesh: simulated offline calls or local communication (via WebSocket/Bluetooth emulation)

This is not hardware — it’s a *purely virtual prototype*, showing how the three channels work together within the same phone UI. The idea is to make the demo realistic enough to present to investors.

What I need: A *software engineer (JS/React, WebRTC, or network simulation)* who can: - Turn my current mockup into a clickable, partially functional demo - Simulate real-time communication between virtual devices - Record a short demo video (screen capture) - Deliver a clean GitHub repo + README explaining the architecture

Tech direction: Frontend can be web-based (React/Next.js or similar). VoIP and Mesh can use existing open APIs (no backend infrastructure required).

Compensation: This is an early-stage collaboration. I offer *up to 5% equity* in the iKIP project for the engineer who helps bring this prototype to life.

Deliverable: - Working virtual demo (clickable, responsive) - 1-minute demo video - Clear code structure on GitHub

If you’re interested, drop a comment or DM me. I’ll share the design files and the GitHub repo link privately.

Thank you — Adam

Source: Former AWS employee. For the most part Amazon Retail doesn’t run on AWS infrastructure and doesn’t use AWS services. I’m simplifying a little bit. But Amazon (the company) runs two sets of infrastructure “AWS” and “CDO” (or COE I don’t remember).

It’s an old wives tale that AWS came out of “excess capacity” from Amazon Retail.

Amazon.com is architected to be resilient to AWS outages because it uses isolated infrastructure, multi-region redundancy, and internal failover systems that go beyond what typical AWS customers use.

Why Amazon.com Stays Online During AWS Outages Amazon.com ≠ Typical AWS Customer While Amazon.com runs on AWS, it doesn’t rely solely on the same public infrastructure that most customers use. It has dedicated, hardened infrastructure and internal tools that give it more control and visibility. Multi-Region, Multi-AZ Architecture Amazon.com is deployed across multiple AWS regions and availability zones, so if one region (like us-east-1) goes down, traffic can be rerouted to others. Most AWS outages are regional, not global.

Custom DNS and Load Balancing Amazon uses internal DNS and traffic routing systems that can bypass public AWS DNS issues — like the one that caused a major outage in October 2025.

Failover and Graceful Degradation Even if some services are impacted, Amazon.com is built to degrade gracefully — e.g., disabling non-critical features while keeping core shopping functionality online.

Internal Privileges and Early Fixes As AWS’s parent company, Amazon.com likely has early access to fixes, internal support channels, and custom SLAs that help it recover faster than other customers. Not Always Immune That said, Amazon.com has experienced slowdowns or partial outages during major AWS incidents — especially when DynamoDB or EC2 in us-east-1 is affected. But its architecture is designed to minimize visible impact.

TL;DR Amazon.com is like AWS’s best-prepared customer — with private infrastructure, global redundancy, and internal tools that most others don’t have. That’s why it stays up when others go down.