Is AWS Down? Guide to AWS Health Dashboard (Personal vs Service)

When your AWS-hosted application goes down, the first question is always: "Is it AWS or is it my code?" The AWS Health Dashboard helps you quickly identify AWS service issues affecting your resources. This guide explains how to use both the public Service Health Dashboard and your Personal Health Dashboard.

Quick Check: Is AWS Down Right Now?

For public AWS status:

• Visit health.aws.amazon.com
• No login required
• Shows all AWS services globally

For issues affecting YOUR resources:

• Sign in to AWS Console
• Search for AWS Health or click the bell icon
• Check Your account health

Understanding the Two Dashboards

Using the Service Health Dashboard

The public dashboard at health.aws.amazon.com shows the real-time status of all AWS services:

1. Go to health.aws.amazon.com
2. View the status table showing all services
3. Filter by:
   • Region: Focus on your deployment regions
   • Service: Check specific services (EC2, RDS, S3)
4. Click any service for detailed status and history

Status Icons

• ✓ Green: Service operating normally
• ℹ️ Blue: Informational message
• ⚠️ Yellow: Service degradation
• ❌ Red: Service disruption

Subscribe to Updates

Click the RSS icon to subscribe to status updates in your feed reader.

Using the Personal Health Dashboard

The Personal Health Dashboard provides proactive alerts for issues that may affect YOUR specific AWS resources.

Access Personal Health Dashboard

1. Sign in to AWS Management Console
2. Click the bell icon in the top navigation
3. Or search for AWS Health in services
4. Or go to phd.aws.amazon.com directly

Dashboard Sections

Open Issues

Current events affecting your resources:

• Service issues impacting your running instances
• Scheduled maintenance for your resources
• Account-specific notifications

Scheduled Changes

Upcoming maintenance that may affect you:

• EC2 instance retirements
• RDS maintenance windows
• Certificate expirations

Other Notifications

Informational messages about:

• New features in services you use
• Security bulletins
• Billing alerts

Set Up Automated Alerts

Configure EventBridge to receive automatic notifications for AWS Health events.

Step 1: Create an SNS Topic

1. Go to Amazon SNS > Topics
2. Click Create topic
3. Choose Standard type
4. Name it: aws-health-alerts
5. Click Create topic

Step 2: Create an Email Subscription

1. Click on your topic
2. Click Create subscription
3. Protocol: Email
4. Endpoint: [email protected]
5. Click Create subscription
6. Confirm the subscription via email

Step 3: Create EventBridge Rule

1. Go to Amazon EventBridge > Rules
2. Click Create rule
3. Name: aws-health-to-sns
4. Event bus: default
5. Rule type: Rule with an event pattern
6. Click Next

Step 4: Configure Event Pattern

For all AWS Health events:

{
  "source": ["aws.health"],
  "detail-type": ["AWS Health Event"]
}

For specific services only (e.g., EC2 and RDS):

{
  "source": ["aws.health"],
  "detail-type": ["AWS Health Event"],
  "detail": {
    "service": ["EC2", "RDS"]
  }
}

Step 5: Set Target

1. Target type: AWS service
2. Select target: SNS topic
3. Topic: aws-health-alerts
4. Click Next, review, and create

AWS Health API

For programmatic access, use the AWS Health API (requires Business or Enterprise Support plan):

# List all events affecting your account
aws health describe-events --region us-east-1

# Get details of a specific event
aws health describe-event-details --event-arns "arn:aws:health:..."

# List affected entities (specific resources)
aws health describe-affected-entities --filter eventArns="arn:aws:health:..."

Best Practices

• Check Personal Health first: More relevant than public dashboard for your issues
• Set up alerts: Don't rely on manually checking dashboards
• Monitor multiple channels: Status page + CloudWatch + third-party monitoring
• Document incidents: Keep records for post-mortems and SLA claims
• Test your alerts: Verify notification pipeline works before real incidents

When the Dashboard Shows Green But You're Down

If AWS shows healthy but your service is down, check these in order:

1. Personal Health Dashboard: Account-specific issues
2. CloudWatch metrics: Resource-level health
3. Security groups: Network access rules
4. IAM permissions: Access denied errors
5. Application logs: Your code may be the issue
6. DNS resolution: Check your domain points to correct IPs

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