Akamai, a leading global content delivery network, was responsible for an outage today which impacted large portions of the Internet, including popular websites FedEx, UPS, Home Depot, and many others. The outage lasted at least an hour and was the result of a “software configuration” update which went wrong, apparently causing a disruption to the DNS system at the company.

According to Akamai:

“At 15:46 UTC today, a software configuration update triggered a bug in the DNS system, the system that directs browsers to websites. This caused a disruption impacting availability of some customer websites. The disruption lasted up to an hour. Upon rolling back the software configuration update, the services resumed normal operations. Akamai can confirm this was not a cyberattack against Akamai’s platform.”

Akamai went on further in their post-outage announcement, explaining that they intend to do better in the future:

“We apologize for the inconvenience that resulted. We are reviewing our software update process to prevent future disruptions.”

This is just one of many serious recent outages caused by major content delivery networks and cloud hosting providers over the past year, including CloudFlare, Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, IBM Cloud, and Google Cloud. The recent run of outages may cause some CIOs and CTOs to re-evaluate their reliance on centralized CND and Cloud solutions.

Join the conversation at our message board companion website, LowEndTalk, about this latest outage.

See a larger list of impacted major websites by today’s outage below:

Jon Biloh

Jon Biloh is the owner and operator of LowEndBox and LowEndTalk, two of the most recognized platforms in the global web hosting and infrastructure community. With nearly two decades of experience in the IT industry, Jon has spent his career building, growing, and acquiring internet infrastructure companies, with a focus on affordability, transparency, and performance.

Before acquiring LowEndBox and LowEndTalk, Jon was involved in founding and scaling several hosting-related ventures, from bare-metal data center operations to high-volume cloud platforms. His hands-on understanding of both the business and technical sides of infrastructure has shaped his approach to community building and editorial strategy.

Today, Jon’s mission is to modernize and expand the LowEnd ecosystem while staying true to its roots: serving developers, small businesses, and independent providers who value control, value, and community. Under his leadership, LowEndBox is evolving into more than just a deals site, it’s becoming a resource hub, media platform, and discovery engine for DIY hosting enthusiasts and indie cloud providers.

When he’s not working on platform improvements, Jon can be found engaging with users on LowEndTalk (@jbiloh), collaborating with providers, and exploring new ways to support the next generation of internet builders.