Overview of the Incident
The incident occurred on June 8, 2021, when the Fastly Content Delivery Network (CDN) suffered a global outage that affected several major website and internet services. The outage was primarily caused by a software configuration update that introduced a bug, triggering disruptions in Fastly's CDN services.
As a result of this incident, popular websites such as CNN, The Guardian, Reddit, Amazon and many other companies including the U.K. Government: that relied on content from Fastly CDN experienced downtime and accessibility issues during this period, leading to user disruption and financial losses for businesses.
Incident Response and Disaster Strategies
Companies affected by the Fastly CDN internet outage should implement several strategies to improve their incident response and disaster recovery capabilities as summarized below:
a) Diverse CDN Providers
Companies should consider using multiple CDN providers to avoid single points of failure. Diversifying CDN providers to supplement the services distributes the risk and enhances redundancy.
b) Incident Response Plans
Organizations should have well-defined incident response plans in place. These plans should outline roles, responsibilities, and communication channels during a crisis of this nature.
c) Regular Audits and Testing
Companies that rely on CDNs should carry out regular audits of CDN configurations and system testing can help identify vulnerabilities and ensure the CDN setup is resilient to potential issues that impact on availability of services.
d) Real-time Monitoring
Implement comprehensive monitoring of CDN performance and traffic patterns to detect anomalies and react quickly to potential incidents.
e) Disaster Recovery and Backup Strategies
Maintain up-to-date backups of critical data and have a disaster recovery plan ready to quickly restore services in case of a prolonged outage.
f) Incident Communication
Establish clear communication channels to keep customers, stakeholders, and the public informed during an outage. Transparency and timely updates can help mitigate the impact on a company's reputation.
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