Early Monday, October 20, the host platform Amazon Web Service (AWS) experienced outages and widespread disruption along the East Coast. Canvas, Dana Hall’s online course management system, went down as a direct result of the AWS crash. AWS reported mid-Monday morning that all underlying issues were resolved; however, Canvas was still experiencing connectivity errors well into Monday evening. AWS outages are infrequent, so when this one occurred, its impact on Dana Hall students and faculty was felt immediately.
The AWS failure primarily affected East Coast users, leaving many students and teachers unable to upload assignments, access materials, or log into classes. The widespread downtime caused frustration across schools that rely on AWS, disrupting learning and productivity.
Dana Hall has used Canvas (and, by extension, AWS) since fall 2021, and has minimal issues with it, says Technology Support Specialist Ms. Samantha Maselli. She first became aware of the crash early Monday morning via a phone alert, but didn’t think anything of this particular crash, because “Canvas actually crashes a few times a week,” she says, “but you would never know because other servers help, so students and faculty rarely feel the effects.” Because AWS is such a significant platform, though, this particular crash wasn’t quickly fixed, and effects lingered.
A message was sent out to Dana Hall faculty at 7:30 am, briefly explaining the situation, while being cautious not to worry faculty and dramatize the situation. The Technology Department monitored system updates throughout the day but determined the problem stemmed from AWS’s external servers, an issue beyond the school’s control. The Technology Department, along with Academic Dean Ms. Krista Falcone, discussed how the faculty and students would be supported throughout the disruption, concluding that it would be determined individually in departments how they would temporarily adjust. Dana Hall stopped experiencing issues with Canvas by mid-day Tuesday, October 21, but for AWS it was a more significant interruption .
Dana Hall mostly uses Google-owned platforms, so in comparison to some other East Coast schools that use AWS-supported software, our school was spared. Ms. Maselli noted that Dana Hall has faced several challenges with Google in the past that were larger in scale than this Canvas crash, and were still able to handle it. Because of Dana Hall’s strong digital backup plans, nothing major was lost. “We are lucky in that sense!” Ms. Maselli says.
Ms. Maselli does not think that this outage will affect Dana Hall’s usage of Canvas in the future. Referencing Dana Hall’s previous learning management system, Ms. Maselli mentions “Schoology left us in the dark for seven days one time. Canvas has never done something like that.” The technology department has had a positive experience with Canvas thus far and will continue to use it for the foreseeable future, even as AWS continues to manage their own issues.
hanna eljeaan