Amazon Web Services (AWS), the heavily used cloud service created by Amazon, had suffered a massive outage on Oct. 20, 2025. As of now, there is no known cause for this outage. The outage revealed the dependence that people, both students and teachers, have on technology, and how hard it is to get work done without technology in today’s day and age.

The outage didn’t only affect the United States, it also affected a large portion of the United Kingdom. According to the BBC, about forty percent of the marketed web systems of the UK. To name a few, apps like Duolingo, Snapchat, are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the thousands of apps that were affected.

The Horizon Sun arranged an interview with Mrs. Sarah Cahill, who teaches computer science at Horizon Honors intermediate and high school, to share how the outage affected her class.

Editor’s note: Responses have been edited for clarity. 

THE HORIZON SUN: Which classes were affected, and how?

SARAH CAHILL: It did affect my AP Computer Science Principles class. Both Code.org and College Board use AWS to host their websites. I needed both of those websites for my students to take an assessment that day…Fortunately, my other classes do not use resources hosted by AWS.

HS: What did your class do instead of the assessment?

SC: My students were able to get on intermittently to take the Code.org test. We rescheduled the College Board test for the following class. My students were able to work in Google Classroom, so they answered free response questions related to their project instead.

In the future, society can expect more independence when it comes to Web servers. This crash is not only a failure, it is also a learning opportunity for companies in the future.