Always prepare for the worst: AWS is launching a new tool that allows customers to simulate what happens if the cloud fails completely.

Major outages among cloud providers are rare, but when they do occur, they cause panic among users. Problems in data centers can bring down web services or, even worse, critical applications, and every second of downtime costs a company money. AWS is therefore adding a new tool that allows customers to temporarily test what a cloud provider disruption would mean for their day-to-day business.

When a disaster occurs

The cloud provider was previously started Fault injection service to simulate what happens if a specific EC2 instance stops working. This allows customers to test the resilience of their applications. Now AWS goes one step further and you can fictionally create a whole Availability Zone paralyze. Because AWS recommends customers spread data and applications across multiple availability zones, you can also simulate disruptions in connectivity between availability zones. This should provide customers with sufficient scenarios to create and test a resilience plan.

According to AWS, this tool is built at the request of customers. The last major outage with global impact at AWS was in 2017 (there was an outage in North America in 2021), but disaster can happen again. Just ask Google Cloud, whose cloud services in Europe were disrupted for weeks due to water damage at a data center in Paris. During AWS re:Invent, CEO Adam Selipsky couldn’t resist attacking the competitor.

Curious what else AWS announced during re:Invent? Read our detailed report and view all news articles on our overview page.