An outage affecting Amazon Web Services (AWS) is causing widespread disruption to some of the world’s biggest websites and apps, with Isle of Man residents among those feeling the impact.

The issue, which began earlier this morning (Monday), has led to connectivity problems for major online platforms including Snapchat, Duolingo, Zoom and Roblox, as well as for customers of several high street banks such as Lloyds and Halifax.

AWS, Amazon’s powerful cloud computing division, provides the underlying infrastructure for millions of websites and applications globally. When it experiences technical issues, the effects are often felt worldwide.

In an update issued late this morning, AWS said it was now ‘seeing significant signs of recovery’, and that ‘most requests should now be succeeding’.

However, users across the Isle of Man have continued to report problems accessing some online services, particularly online banking.

A Lloyds Bank spokesperson confirmed the disruption, saying: ‘You may have seen reports of issues with Amazon Web Services affecting a number of websites and apps across the UK today.

‘We know this is impacting some of our services right now. We’re sorry about this. Please bear with us as we investigate this.’

Douglas-based telecommunications provider Plan.com has also been hit by the outage.

The company announced that its sales and support lines were temporarily unavailable due to the ongoing AWS incident.

AWS has not yet provided full details of what caused the outage, though BBC reports suggest it’s a problem with one of its main data centre regions.

This is not the first time AWS has suffered a major disruption, similar outages in recent years have briefly taken down major services such as Netflix, Disney+, and parts of Amazon’s own retail website.

If you are experiencing issues linked to today’s AWS outage, or are aware of other local businesses affected, please let us know at [email protected].