A widespread Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage has temporarily taken down Canvas, the learning management system used by the University of Kansas (KU), disrupting classes, assignments, and access for students, teaching assistants, and professors.
According to The New York Times, AWS supports a large portion of global internet infrastructure, including platforms for banking, gaming, and entertainment services.
CNN reported that the outage began around 2 a.m. Central Time, with connectivity issues still affecting users by 9:30 a.m.
KU IT Advises Students to Monitor Canvas Status
KU Information Technology (KU IT) has instructed students and staff to check the system hourly, though no estimated time for full restoration has been provided.
Users attempting to access Canvas encountered an animated image of a damaged rocket and the message:
“Canvas is experiencing issues due to an ongoing AWS incident. We are working on recovering as soon as possible.”
The outage, which began around 10 a.m. Eastern Time, affected users attempting to view dashboards or submit assignments.
AWS Investigates Cause of Canvas Outage
AWS, which hosts much of Canvas’s cloud infrastructure, confirmed it is investigating the problem. Both the AWS Health Dashboard and Instructure’s status page are providing regular updates.
When asked about the recovery timeline, Canvas engineers said efforts are ongoing and will continue until full restoration. Students and instructors have been advised to monitor status.instructure.com for the latest updates.
By 4:27 a.m., Amazon reported that many AWS-reliant websites and apps were operating normally, though a backlog of queued requests remained, according to The New York Times.
Experts Warn About Infrastructure Risks
Harry Halpin, CEO of the virtual private network company NymVPN, highlighted the risks of concentrated infrastructure:
“If your entire nation’s infrastructure relies on a few providers, all in the United States, and anything can go down at any moment, either for malicious reasons or just technical errors, that’s an exceedingly dangerous situation.”
Impact:
- KU students and faculty unable to access class materials
- Assignments and dashboards temporarily unavailable
- Recovery efforts ongoing, monitored via official Canvas and AWS status pages
