Netflix Christmas outage: Amazon to blame
| NEW YORK
An outage at one of Amazon's web service centers hit users of听Netflix听Inc's听streaming video听service on Christmas Eve and was not fully resolved until Christmas Day, a spokesman for the movie rental company said on Tuesday.
The outage impacted听Netflix听subscribers across听Canada,听Latin America听and the听United States, and affected various devices that enable users to stream movies and television shows from home,听Netflix听spokesman听Joris Evers听said. Such devices range from gaming consoles like the Nintendo Wii and听PlayStation 3听to Blu-ray DVD players.
Netflix, which is based in听Los Gatos,听California, has 30 million streaming subscribers worldwide, of which more than 27 million are in the听Americas听region that was exposed to the outage and could have potentially been affected, Evers said.
Evers said the issue was the result of an outage at an Amazon Web Services' cloud computing center in听Virginia听and started at about 12:30 p.m. PST (2030 GMT) on Monday and was fully restored before 8:00 a.m. PST Tuesday morning, although streaming was available for most users by 11:00 p.m. PST on Monday.
The event marks the latest in a series of outages from Amazon Web Services, with one occurring in April of last year that knocked out such sites as Reddit and Foursquare.
"We are investigating exactly what happened and how it could have been prevented," Evers of听Netflix听said.
"We are happy that people opening gifts of听Netflix听or听Netflix听capable devices can watch TV shows and movies and apologize for any inconvenience caused last night," he added.
Officials at Amazon Web Services were not available for comment. Evers, the听Netflix听spokesman, declined to comment on the company's contracts with Amazon.
