By David Lynes, Founder & CEO at Unique IQ
October Reflections: Cloud Outages, Resilience and Why Service Continuity Matters in Care Tech
October 2025 brought renewed reminders that even the biggest cloud platforms are not immune to disruption. With high-profile outages at AWS on 20th October 2025 and Microsoft Azure on 29th October 2025, organisations everywhere have been forced to re-examine their assumptions about cloud resilience and risk.
At Unique IQ, working in the care technology sector means the stakes are high. The systems we deliver support carers, coordinators and vulnerable people’s safety every day. When a service falters, it is not simply an inconvenience; it can impact real lives.
“Resilience is not optional when your software supports people’s care and wellbeing.”
In this reflection, I share what we are learning from these cloud incidents, how we approach security and disaster recovery, and how our customers can think about risk in today’s tech landscape.
Lessons from the October Outages
The AWS outage on 20 October, centred in the US-EAST-1 region, was triggered by a DNS resolution failure that affected multiple dependent services around the globe (The Guardian). The Azure outage on 29 October stemmed from a configuration change in its Front Door CDN service, showing how even well-architected systems can fail due to process faults (Newsweek)
Key takeaways for organisations:
- Dependency on a single cloud region or provider introduces concentration risk.
- Cloud redundancy often assumes infrastructure inside the same provider, but configuration or service faults can bypass even geographic separation.
- Outage recovery is often slower than stated “system back up” times due to backlogs and transactional delays.
“When the cloud pauses, the world realises just how dependent we have become on unseen connections.”
For care providers using our software, this means looking beyond uptime statistics to ask: What happens if the service tier I depend on has a global fault? How is my data protected? How quickly can we recover?
Building Security and Resilience from the Ground Up
At Unique IQ we take a layered, pragmatic approach built around the care sector’s sensitivity and need for continuity.
Security First
In care technology, security is not a feature it’s a foundational mindset. When software underpins the safe delivery of care, its resilience must be designed from the ground up.
At Unique IQ, we adopt a security-first posture rooted in prevention, accountability, and constant vigilance. This means thinking beyond external threats. It means treating every system change, integration, and user interaction as a potential point of risk – and designing accordingly.
We embed safeguards at every level of our architecture, guided by best practices and informed by evolving industry standards. Our internal processes are shaped by the understanding that the weakest link is often not a breach, but a blind spot.
“Security isn’t something we add after launch, it’s the lens through which we build, review and evolve everything.
From authentication and access to incident monitoring and risk modelling, our approach is proactive, layered, and purpose-built for the critical, always-on nature of care delivery.
Data and Backup Strategy
In the care sector, data is more than information it’s continuity. It’s the backbone of care delivery, compliance, and coordination. For our customers, downtime doesn’t just disrupt operations it risks missed visits, delayed support, and lost trust.
That’s why our approach to data protection is built around certainty. We think beyond backups, we focus on recoverability.
Our strategy includes geographically distributed resilience, recovery point frameworks aligned to care-critical workflows, and processes built for real-world scenarios, not theoretical ones.
“A recovery plan only works if it’s lived, tested, and trusted, not just written down.”
We stress test our assumptions through drills, continuously improve our readiness posture, and maintain operational clarity around what recovery really means for our customers.
Because in our world, the question isn’t if something might fail, it’s how quickly, smoothly, and safely we can restore service when it does.
Service Continuity and Disaster Recovery
The October outages were a sharp reminder that continuity isn’t a checkbox but a responsibility. In critical sectors like care, the ripple effect of a system failure is immediate and personal. A missed rota update isn’t just a technical hiccup; it can mean someone doesn’t get the care they need.
At Unique IQ, we plan for failure, not because we expect or hope for it but because resilience demands it.
We build with redundancy at multiple levels and actively monitor the health of external dependencies to reduce single points of failure. But our real strength lies in how we prepare: not just systems, but people.
“When a carer cannot access the rota, it is not just downtime; it is a missed visit, a person without care.”
Our response teams are trained for clarity under pressure, and our communication with customers is open and honest because trust doesn’t come from perfection; it comes from reliability when it matters most.
Continuity is not an afterthought. It’s an operational principle that guides how we design, test, and respond, ensuring care can continue, even in moments of disruption.
Questions Every Care Provider Should Be Asking
For care providers selecting software, here are some key questions worth asking:
- What are your RPO and RTO targets, and how regularly are they tested?
- Do you have multi-region deployment, and what happens if your cloud provider region fails?
- How do you manage vendor dependency risk such as cloud providers, CDNs or DNS services?
- How soon can I access my data and continue operations if your service goes offline?
- How is your security built and audited?
- What is your incident-response process when the unexpected happens?
If a vendor cannot answer clearly, that is a signal to dig deeper.
The Future of Resilient Care Technology
As we move further into 2026, the companies that succeed in the care-tech space will be those that treat resilience, security and service continuity not as checkboxes, but as strategic differentiators.
At Unique IQ, that means:
- Continuing to invest in architecture so that downtime becomes seamless recovery.
- Working with partners and clients to ensure data-driven, resilient care workflows.
- Sharing openly about what we learn from incidents, because the care sector benefits when everyone raises the bar.
“The real test of care technology isn’t in what it promises, but in how it performs when pressure hits”
Standing Ready for Whatever Comes Next
October’s high-profile cloud outages were a wake-up call, not because we believed the cloud was perfect, but because they reminded us that risk is real and continuity is non-negotiable.
For clients of Unique IQ, our promise remains steady: your software is backed by robust architecture, skilled people and a mindset that when things go wrong, we are ready. Behind every system are carers, coordinators and vulnerable people who rely on it.
If you would like to talk about resilience, continuity or any aspect of our security approach, please get in touch with us at Unique IQ. Let us build care technology that does not just promise support but delivers it when it matters most.
About the Author
David Lynes is the Founder and CEO of Unique IQ, an award-winning provider of home care management software. With more than 20 years of experience in technology and business innovation, David is driven by a mission to transform the care sector through intelligent, reliable software that puts people first. A champion of resilience, data security, and ethical tech design, he leads with a focus on building solutions that make a real difference to care providers and the communities they serve.