Too Big To Fail: How Long Until the Next Server Outage?

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The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

A vast portion of today’s internet, and therefore today’s world, relies on just a few companies like Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, Microsoft Corp. MSFT and Amazon.com Inc. AMZN. If you access your bank account or order a pizza, chances are the data is being routed to a server run by one of these companies.

To accomplish this, they have built out server farms around the globe that provide the infrastructure for most of the applications you use. And they are massive. Amazon’s are typically about 200,000 square feet — roughly the size of 4 football fields — and hold between 50,000 and 80,000 servers.

What this means is that the internet today can end up being highly centralized. Big tech stands in the middle of all of our data and communications collecting dizzying revenues. This concentration of power is worrisome for many, but one of the most pertinent is that it can end up making systems weak. A single failure can bring down large swaths of the internet, bringing the typical systems of modern life to a halt.

And this has happened already, perhaps not yet with too dire of consequences, but the event serves as a warning of what could be. On Oct. 4, Facebook’s — recently rebranded Meta Platforms Inc. FB — servers experienced an outage. For close to 6 hours, all of Facebook and its applications — Instagram, WhatsApp — went dark. When this happened, it drove traffic to other communication systems, and many of them experienced their own outages.

With a centralized system, the risk of a single domino knocking down countless others will always exist. But what can be done about this?

Cudo Ventures believes it has a solution. The company has a platform, Cudo Compute, that is a decentralized version of something like Amazon’s Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS). Instead of having server farms run by a single company, the platform spreads the storage and computation work out across a global network of participants. Cudo Compute pays for the use of spare computing power on individuals’ devices.

The company believes that the decentralized nature makes it immune to the single-point failure risk of the current model, creating a safer, more robust global cloud. And the solution might provide further benefits as well. It may be more energy-efficient as the network can scale based on demand. Machines are only spun up if they are being put to use. This is in contrast to the “always-on” standard of today’s model.

Additionally, Cudo achieves this while honoring its commitment to carbon neutrality. Ultimately, they aim to create a decentralized, sustainable, and connected world where no computing resources are wasted.

If you’d like to learn more about what Cudo Compute is trying to do, check out its website here.

The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.