(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)
A major Cloudflare outage rippled across the web last week, taking huge portions of the internet down in seconds. Because Cloudflare handles DNS resolution, reverse proxies, caching and security layers for millions of websites, a failure in their network instantly hit everything downstream.
What actually happened to Cloudflare?
DNS works like the internet's phone book, converting human-friendly website names like google.com into numerical server IP addresses (e.g. 123.123.123.123) that computers use to find each other.
When Cloudflare’s DNS system stopped working, it was like someone had ripped out huge chunks of that phone book. Browsers tried to look up websites but got nothing back, leaving them with nowhere to go.
The websites themselves were still running fine on their servers but DNS failures meant users could not reach them. It was like knowing someone's name but having no way to find their phone number or address. Users saw error messages like "server not found" or "host unreachable". Your favourite sites didn’t break, they just became invisible.
As Cloudflare’s network failed, the internet's traffic routing system went into panic mode. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) attempted to reroute around failing paths, but this had the side effect of widespread slowdowns, dropped connections and routing confusion.
Even websites not using Cloudflare were impacted by the increased load. The whole system basically spiralled into disorder
What can businesses do to mitigate?
Here are some mitigating strategies:
1) Don't rely on a single DNS provider
Think of DNS providers like having only one key to your office. If you lose it, you are locked out.
Set up a backup DNS provider alongside your primary one. That way, if one fails, the other can keep your website accessible. Services like Route 53, Google Cloud DNS or Azure DNS can act as your backup. Set up automatic checks to make sure both are working properly.
This is crucial if you are providing emergency services.
2) Keep a local backup of your domain information
Configure your systems to remember recently accessed addresses for longer periods. This means that even if your DNS provider temporarily fails, your website can keep working for existing visitors using cached information. It is not a complete solution but it buys you valuable time during an outage.
3) Set up alerts to catch problems early
You can't fix problems you don't know about. Use monitoring services to constantly check whether your website is accessible from different locations around the world. Services like Pingdom or UptimeRobot will send you immediate alerts when something goes wrong. The faster you spot the issue, the faster you can respond or switch to backup systems.
4) Create a plan and actually practice it
Write down exactly what your team needs to do when your primary systems fail.
Where are the backup credentials stored? Who contacts the backup provider? Who updates customers?
Test this plan every few months when there isn't an emergency. During a real crisis, you don't want people fumbling around trying to figure out what to do.
5) Spread your operations across different providers and locations
Don't keep everything in one place with one provider. Distribute your critical systems across different services and geographic regions. Set up automatic systems that can detect failures and redirect traffic away from problem areas.
It is more expensive but it means one failure won't bring down everything.
A reminder of how centralised the web really is
We think of the internet as decentralised but in reality, a handful of providers handle an enormous portion of its infrastructure. When one of those giants stumbles, the ripple effect is massive, affecting websites everywhere.
Many businesses put all their trust in Cloudflare's DNS without setting up any backup. No second provider, no safety net. When Cloudflare went down, these businesses watched their websites simply vanish with no way to bring them back online.
It is a harsh lesson about single points of failure. Every business needs a backup plan because relying entirely on a single provider, no matter how reliable they are, will leave you exposed when things go wrong.