When the Cloud Goes Dark: A Small-Business Playbook for AWS-Scale Outages

Point-of-sale down, website offline, chat and email dead major cloud outages ripple through every tool you use. This playbook helps small businesses keep selling, serving, and communicating when the cloud blinks.

The SMB Outage Playbook

• Know your stack: Inventory SaaS and cloud dependencies by function (orders, payments, support) and provider/region.
• Brownout workflows: Pre-write “degraded mode” procedures-how to take orders, ship, and support without the primary tool.
• Continuity for web & payments: Static fallback site and backup processor/manual capture keep revenue flowing.
• Local-first ops: Printable order forms, offline POS, and scheduled batch sync once services return.
• Backups & restores: Test restores quarterly; store backups off-platform and off-region.
• Comms plan: Status updates via channels not impacted by your main stack; use prewritten templates.

SMB Cloud Outage - Quick Checklist

• Map critical services & regions (with owners)
• Degraded mode runbooks for sales, fulfillment, support
• Static fallback website + DNS switch plan
• Backup payment method (processor or manual imprint)
• Daily offsite backups; quarterly restore drills
• Emergency comms tree independent of primary SaaS
• Customer status templates + incident log
• Post-mortem template with RTO/RPO tracking

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Blackout Preppers' mission is to provide supplies and information to help save lives when blackouts, crises, disasters, emergencies, and hazards happen.
Our motto: “Prepare If You Care.”