On a Tuesday morning in November, Canadians sat down at their desks and saw something they rarely see. Websites refused to load. ChatGPT returned error messages. Downdetector lit up with alerts. College students, software engineers, journalists, small business owners, and public sector workers all ran into the same wall. For a few hours, the digital world felt unreliable.
This disruption did not begin in Canada. It started with a failure deep inside Cloudflare, a company based in the United States that handles a large share of the global internet’s security and traffic management. When Cloudflare stumbled, global platforms stumbled with it.
This edition of Tales From the Grid looks at what happened during the Cloudflare outage, how it relates to electrical resilience, and why the line between digital reliability and physical power infrastructure is growing thinner each year. It also explains why Canadian organizations increasingly depend on generators, control panels, and engineered backup power systems to protect their operations from events that start in distant networks or in their own electrical rooms.
The morning when nothing would load
Reports from news outlets and network monitors show that the Cloudflare outage began late on November 18 London time and spread quickly. Cloudflare acknowledged that one of its security systems attempted to process an unusually large configuration file. That file triggered software failures across its global network and caused websites to return error messages to users across multiple regions.
The Financial Times confirmed that services impacted included X, ChatGPT, Ikea, Canva, and even regulatory websites. Cloudflare also stated that there was no indication of a cyber attack. The problem was technical, internal, and fast moving.
Network monitoring services reported that the disruption affected websites, banking systems, software platforms, and cloud based applications in Canada. Some users were cut off from artificial intelligence tools they use daily. Others lost access to workplace software. For educators and students, the interruption hit just as assignments and digital exams were underway.
The outage lasted several hours. What it revealed lasted longer. The cloud is not floating above us. The Cloudflare incident did not begin with an electrical problem. It began with software. But the disruption highlighted something important.
Cloud services are physical.
They depend on server racks, electrical panels, cooling systems, distribution equipment, transfer switches, and generators. A failure inside a single provider can crash parts of the internet. A failure in a data center’s electrical feed can do the same.
Just weeks before the Cloudflare event, Amazon Web Services experienced a major outage that disrupted banks, hospitals, and media companies. Experts noted that growing dependence on centralized cloud services increases the scale of impact when something goes wrong.
Canadian market reports show rapid growth in domestic data center demand due to artificial intelligence and cloud computing. That growth adds pressure to facilities already dealing with aging electrical panels, overloaded circuits, and equipment pushed beyond its original design.
A report on Canadian data centre safety noted that overheating power supplies, short circuits inside server racks, and poor electrical housekeeping significantly increase the risk of fires and unplanned outages. The cloud is only as reliable as the power keeping it alive.
What a blackout can do to digital life
The Iberian Peninsula blackout earlier this year showed what happens when electrical systems fail outright. On April 28, a massive loss of power shut down most of Spain and Portugal. Millions of people were left without electricity for hours. Trains stopped. Traffic systems failed. Hospitals and emergency services shifted to generators. It was not simply a power outage. It was a collapse of the physical foundation that supports modern digital life.
Patterns across outages
When viewed together, the Cloudflare disruption and the Iberian blackout illustrate a clear pattern.
Digital reliability and electrical reliability are now intertwined.
- A configuration error in a cloud provider can disrupt millions.
- A voltage collapse in a national grid can knock out critical internet services.
- A failure in a data center’s breaker panel can take down essential tools.
- A fire in a server rack can disable thousands of customer portals.
Global outage reports show that while the total number of cloud incidents fluctuates year to year, the proportion of outages that cause visible user impact remains high. This is the environment Canadian organizations now operate in.
Why Canada needs to pay attention
Canada is becoming a prime location for data centres because of its cool climate, large land availability, and relatively cheap power. Industry research shows the Canadian market is growing quickly and may triple in size as artificial intelligence adoption accelerates.
But this growth comes with challenges:
• older facilities running new loads
• electrical systems never designed for today’s density
• overheating transformers and distribution panels
• limited redundancy in some regions
• long lead times for replacement equipment
• growing demand for clean energy
Canadian data centres face real electrical risks that can cascade into national digital failures. Organizations that depend on cloud tools, remote work, or digital workflows need plans that address more than software failures. They also need plans for when the power feeding those cloud services becomes unstable.
A practical look at solutions
The Cloudflare outage and the Iberian blackout reveal a simple truth that crosses every sector. Modern digital life depends on physical systems that must remain stable even when the wider network falters. Organizations that cannot afford downtime prepare for both cloud based failures and grid level disruptions with layered strategies that start with electrical resilience.
Standby generators remain the backbone of this approach. Facilities rely on them when the grid becomes unstable or when voltage swings threaten sensitive equipment. Many operations also use rental generators during seasonal peaks, plant shutdowns, large maintenance windows, or unexpected outages that stretch beyond installed capacity. Control panels play an equally important role because they manage how power flows during transitions and determine which loads start first and which loads are protected.
Distribution systems inside buildings require regular attention as well. Aging electrical panels, overloaded circuits, or equipment that lacks proper maintenance can turn a brief voltage event into a full facility shutdown. For this reason, power planners across Canada continue to update switchgear, modernize protection schemes, and increase redundancy in their critical systems.
The core message for Canadian leaders is clear. You cannot control every disruption in the cloud or every failure in a distant grid, but you can control the resilience of your own operation. That resilience comes from a combination of generator readiness, thoughtful design of control systems, and the availability of reliable rental power when conditions demand it.
Tales From the Grid exists to bring these events into focus. The goal is not to create alarm. It is to help readers understand the forces shaping the reliability of the systems they depend on and the practical steps that reduce risk when the unexpected arrives.
References
ABC News Australia. (2025, June 20). Spain reveals complex causes of disastrous blackout. Retrieved from https://www.abc.net.au
Bentley Systems. (2025, June 10). When the lights went out: Stories from the Iberian blackout. Retrieved from https://www.bentley.com
Encor Advisors. (2025, October 25). The state of data centres in Canada. Retrieved from https://www.encoradvisors.ca
Euronews Next. (2025, November 18). OpenAI X and other major sites down amid Cloudflare outage. Retrieved from https://www.euronews.com
Financial Times. (2025, November 18). OpenAI X and other major sites down amid Cloudflare outage. Retrieved from https://www.ft.com
Fuentes Fire. (2025, October). Data centres under fire: Canadas costly IT outages. Retrieved from https://www.fuentesfire.ca
Goiana da Silva, F., et al. (2025). Impacts of the April 2025 Iberian blackout on the Portuguese National Health Service. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 22(4). https://doi.org/10.xxxx/ijerphxxxx
Power Magazine. (2025, May 8). Understanding the April 2025 Iberian Peninsula blackout: Early analysis and lessons learned. Retrieved from https://www.powermag.com
Rabobank. (2025, May 22). Facts and lessons learned from the Iberian blackout. Retrieved from https://www.rabobank.com
Reuters. (2025, November 18). Cloudflare restores services after outage impacts thousands of internet users. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com
Shodan Internet Intelligence. (2025, May). Regional internet disruption during the Iberian power outage. Retrieved from https://www.shodan.io
The Guardian. (2025, November 18). Cloudflare outage causes error messages across the internet. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com
Uptime Institute. (2025). Global data centre outage analysis and reliability trends. Retrieved from https://www.uptimeinstitute.com
This article was researched and written by the author with assistance from advanced artificial intelligence tools for synthesis, structure, and fact organization. All analysis, conclusions, and editorial judgment remain those of the author.