Amazon’s AWS Shows Signs of Weakness as Rivals Charge Ahead (1)

It’s no exaggeration to say Amazon.com Inc. invented the cloud business. Amazon Web Services took the corporate data center apart and split it into pieces, building pay-as-you go services delivered with remarkable speed and consistency. The effort brushed aside incumbents, transformed an internal startup into Amazon’s profit engine and gave executives in Seattle the power to dictate terms to much of the industry.

Now, suddenly, AWS is struggling. On Monday, Amazon’s cloud unit suffered one of the worst outages in its history, taking down its most important cluster of data centers and disrupting the operations of hundreds of companies and consumer apps. Trading platforms, digital curriculums for ...