Hey, there! Log in / Register

Amazon Web outage meant free parking at metered spots in Boston today; 38 zoning hearings also postponed

BTD waited until 5 p.m. to announce you could have parked for free in metered spots today because the service it uses for the ParkBoston app (which lets you pay via your phone, rather than via a credit card or quarters) relies on Amazon Web Services, which went down this morning.

And with no way to accommodate e-payers, the city stopped parking ticket enforcement as well.

But don't count on free parking on Wednesday:

Note: Ticketing is only suspended for unpaid meter violations this evening. All other violations will be enforced. Please plan to pay at the meter with a card or coin tomorrow as we resume normal ticketing operations.

The Amazon Web Services outage also crashed the WebEx service the Zoning Board of Appeals uses to conduct hearings. A couple of hours after they were scheduled to begin, the board changed the teaser on the city YouTube channel that had been urging viewers to please stand by to read the hearings had been called off and would be rescheduled.

The hearings ranged from minor - a resident of Hancock Street wanted to build a one-car driveway - all the way up to a proposal for a 22-story residential building on the site of a former nightclub at 150 Kneeland St. in Chinatown.

Also affected: The Bluebikes bike-rental network, which reported:

Our software was impacted by the AWS outage and users may see some delays and errors in trying to rent bikes. We apologize for the inconvenience, if you experience an error, please wait a moment and try again.

Neighborhoods: 
Topics: 
Free tagging: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

I'm pretty sure it affected Amazon deliveries as well. None of my stuff scheduled for delivery on December 7th by 10:00 PM arrived.

up
Voting closed 0

 

up
Voting closed 0

Had an Amazon Fresh order in the 5-7PM window yesterday. They waited until 6:20 to cancel it and offer a refund. The best slot I could get in reorder was 7-9PM today.

Pretty rage inducing all around. At work our strict web filter also uses AWS so our work computers were useless for most of the day. We were, of course, expected to figure it out ourselves.

up
Voting closed 0

Realizing that having 90% of the lights in my house connected to the web isn't the smartest idea when the whole system crashes and the routines you rely on just don't work. It was time to break out the old-school candles last night.

up
Voting closed 0

.

up
Voting closed 0

Whoo, hoo Amazon, thank you for the free parking. Please, screw up again.

up
Voting closed 0

For the day when Google goes down.

up
Voting closed 0

Amazon doesn't get a nickel out of me.

up
Voting closed 0

I'm fathom a guess that they do get some of your nickels whether you know it or not.

up
Voting closed 0

But that's not really what I was driving at.

up
Voting closed 0

It has happened before. And parts of Google run through AWS, I believe, so an outage of AWS can certainly cause an outage of certain Google platforms.

up
Voting closed 0