UAE small businesses can learn from AWS outage that froze the internet

Dubai: Amazon Web Services’ global outage disrupted key online services and exposed the growing dependence of small businesses on centralized cloud platforms.

The incident, which originated from a regional gateway issue on the U.S. East Coast, caused widespread access problems for websites, applications, and payment systems worldwide.

While AWS said the issue was resolved within hours, the disruption was enough to affect operations for many companies worldwide.

Lesson #1: Cloud dependency creates single points of failure

For small businesses in the UAE that rely on cloud-based tools for e-commerce, logistics, and payments, the event underscored the risks of depending on a single provider or region.

Ismael Wrixen, CEO of ThriveCart, said the problem went beyond a single technical failure. “Today's outage isn't just an ‘east coast AWS’ problem; it's a reminder that 100% uptime is a myth for everyone. The internet runs on shared infrastructure.”

That shared infrastructure powers most modern business platforms—from online stores to tax systems. When it fails, the impact spreads quickly.

“The real story isn't just that AWS had a critical issue, but how many businesses discovered their platform partner had no plan for it, especially outside of US hours,” Wrixen said.

Lesson #2: Time-zone gaps can worsen the impact of outages

For UAE companies, this gap can mean that outages occur during local business hours with limited immediate support from U.S.-based teams.

Wrixen further flagged that businesses should use this as an opportunity to improve system design. “This is a harsh wake-up call about the critical need for multi-regional redundancy and intelligent architecture.”

Multi-regional redundancy involves hosting data or applications in more than one location, ensuring continuity when one region experiences a failure.

Lesson #3: Downtime directly translates into financial losses

The economic effect of such outages can be significant. Online transactions pause, digital ad campaigns continue to spend, and customer activity declines.

“The headlines will focus on streaming services being down. The real, untold story is the unrecoverable loss of conversions for millions of small businesses,” Wrixen added.

“Every minute this occurs, entrepreneurs are learning the most painful lesson in e-commerce: your perfectly optimized ad funnel means nothing if the ‘buy’ button is dead. This isn't just a technical glitch; it costs real businesses money.”

Lesson #4: Build for resilience, not avoidance

Some platforms remained operational because they had planned for such scenarios.

“This outage instantly exposes the critical difference between a scattered tech stack and a resilient operating system. The platforms that are still able to process transactions today are the ones that were architected for this exact scenario.”

The solution, Wrixen added, is not to abandon major providers but to build systems that can withstand their downtime.

“It's not about avoiding major providers; it's about how you build on them. The ultimate security for an entrepreneur is a platform partner who is obsessed with conversion reliability, because they know that's the only metric that keeps their customers in business.”

Key takeaway for UAE small businesses? The AWS disruption illustrates how deeply integrated cloud services have become in small business operations.

For UAE entrepreneurs, the takeaway is practical: invest in redundancy, ensure local support coverage, and choose platform partners that prioritise operational continuity.