Overview
On June 24, 2019, a significant internet outage impacted services worldwide, including major websites like Discord, Facebook, and Reddit. The outage was caused by a BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) route leak, which created a ripple effect across the global internet, affecting approximately 15% of Cloudflare’s traffic.
Technical Details
The outage was triggered when DQE Communications, a regional ISP, accidentally advertised incorrect routes to Cloudflare’s services due to a BGP optimization mishap. These faulty routes were propagated by Verizon, further amplifying the issue and affecting a large swath of internet traffic. The routing error caused significant disruptions to Cloudflare’s Content Delivery Network (CDN), affecting services like Discord, AWS, and Nintendo Life.
Impact
- Global Disruption: Popular platforms such as Discord and Reddit were inaccessible for nearly two hours, affecting millions of users worldwide.
- Service Recovery: Cloudflare worked quickly to correct the routing error, and services were restored after about two hours of downtime.
Lessons Learned
This incident highlighted the fragility of the internet’s routing system and the far-reaching effects that even a small routing error can cause. Enterprises need visibility into the internet infrastructure they depend on, especially when relying on cloud services.
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