The recent outage of Amazon Web Services (AWS) on October 20 has reignited concerns about the vulnerability of the internet’s current infrastructure, which relies heavily on a handful of centralized cloud providers. The multi-hour disruption impacted prominent platforms such as Robinhood, underscoring how dependent online services are on a few dominant players.
AWS alone controls approximately 30% of the global cloud market, with Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud accounting for 21% and 12% respectively. Combined, these three providers cover over 60% of the cloud services industry, presenting a significant concentration of dependency. According to Marta Belcher, President and Chair of the Filecoin Foundation, this concentration creates critical single points of failure.
“The majority of data underpinning the websites we rely on daily is stored within data centers owned by just three companies,” Belcher told The Defiant. “When any of these companies experience outages, vast portions of the web become inaccessible.”
This latest event has brought renewed attention to decentralized approaches to internet infrastructure, particularly blockchain-based networks aiming to provide more reliable alternatives.
Filecoin represents a prominent decentralized storage solution designed to ensure secure and continuous data availability. Utilizing cryptographic proofs, it maintains data integrity across a distributed network of independent storage providers. With a total value locked of $21 million, Filecoin’s model reduces dependence on single entities or servers, mitigating the risk of extensive downtime.
“Filecoin aims to offer a more resilient, decentralized foundation for future web applications, decreasing reliance on any one company,” Belcher explained. “Web3 projects experiencing interruptions during centralized cloud outages highlight the need for integrating decentralized storage.”
The network incorporates various tools such as Akave, Storacha, and Basin to facilitate integration, alongside retrieval systems like Titan and FilCDN that enhance speed and accessibility, as identified in a recent Messari report commissioned by the Filecoin Foundation.
Akash provides another decentralized option focused on cloud computing resources. It enables developers to lease GPU and CPU capacity from a distributed network rather than rely solely on centralized providers. Akash leverages blockchain smart contracts to manage resource allocation, payments, and verification processes.
Jacob Willoughby, CTO of Storj, highlighted Akash among leading decentralized compute platforms actively used by developers, alongside Valdi and Flux. He emphasized multiple benefits of such platforms including decreased reliance on single cloud vendors, enhanced resistance to censorship, improved data durability, and minimized vendor lock-in.
Willoughby advocates for adopting hybrid multi-cloud strategies that combine established cloud providers like AWS and Google Cloud with decentralized networks. Utilizing orchestration tools such as Kubernetes, businesses can run critical workloads on traditional clouds while offloading data-heavy processes to decentralized systems. This approach allows workload scaling while reducing risk related to outages from any one provider.
“Achieving this requires a long-term commitment to testing and preparing for failure scenarios,” he noted. “Organizations need to develop and maintain contingency plans that ensure operational continuity regardless of infrastructure disruptions.”
As cloud outages continue to disrupt internet services, decentralized networks like Filecoin and Akash are gaining recognition as viable components in creating a more robust and resilient internet architecture.
