As the Titanic’s advertisements claimed that the boat was unsinkable, many who rely on the internet might claim it is unstoppable. However, a recent event showed thousands of internet users that this is not the case.

On Oct. 20, the outage of Amazon Web Services (AWS) halted the operations of many of the world’s biggest web services, including certain Adobe products, Lyft, Peloton and the Amazon shopping website itself. The outage also impacted Canvas, the learning interface integral to Mississippi State University’s academic operations. This outage, though it only lasted a day, revealed just how dependent MSU has become on the internet for daily academic operations.

AWS is one of the world’s largest cloud services, holding all the various software, databases, networks and other storage-based resources that its customers utilize. These cloud services render local physical equipment useless and, for the average user, make the sites and resources accessible everywhere.

When a service like AWS goes down, it incites a domino effect of failing operations, which, in this case, was only fixable by Amazon itself. The events of Oct. 20 make it clear that the internet is not indestructible.

During the outage, over 2,000 companies and services were impacted, according to CNet. This was a real disruption to thousands of people’s days, as it impacted major outlets, even reaching the United Kingdom’s governmental websites.

This outage also hit home for Mississippi State University, affecting Canvas, the interface integral to MSU academic operations.

That Monday’s classes at MSU were quickly turned on their heads as Canvas logged out users and offered little to no support for being able to get back in. Only a few hours into the day, it was made clear to the public that the outage of Canvas and other web services was due to a shortcoming of AWS.

If the campus’s Wi-Fi is having a slow day, those who rely on the internet for classwork must suffer, as many instructors who prepare with online materials do. Though this time, the problem extended past the Starkville campus and left the IT department without many actionable fixes.

This outage made clear just how reliant Mississippi State is on the internet for classwork and academics, and how big the impact is when it fails. 

Meg Marquardt, an assistant English professor, shared the outage’s impact from the faculty’s perspective.

“It was stopping me from doing my present work of, like, grading, but it also was preventing me from prepping for what came next, and that was a real wake-up call for me,” Marquardt said.

Marquardt shared her opinion on what it feels like to be left with no options in the midst of internet issues.

“[It] takes your own destiny out of your own hand,” Marquardt said.

So, is Mississippi State too reliant upon internet services for campus operations?

If the AWS outage had extended past that Monday and lasted, say, an entire week, MSU likely would not have been able to recover from such an immense loss of time in academic operations. Thus, it should be a serious conversation around what we can do better to prepare ourselves for such issues in the future.

Although continuing to advance with technology must be a priority for Mississippi State, there is no harm in staying prepared with a backup plan and the tried and true method of physical copies and files for lesson plans and assignments. However, this initiative should not be the whole undertaking of students and faculty, but of the leaders of the university, too. As MSU leadership pushes toward a more centralized campus, the potential failure of key internet services leaves it vulnerable, and MSU must have a clear backup plan for each service it depends on.