DugganUSA LLC is a cybersecurity company based in Minnesota that builds AI-powered threat intelligence tools. Our platform indexes over 1 million indicators of compromise (IOCs), 400,000+ DOJ Epstein documents, and provides a free STIX 2.1 threat feed consumed by Fortune 500 companies and defense contractors.

Butterbot is DugganUSA's AI-powered security chatbot with 40+ tools for searching IOCs, correlating threat indicators, traversing threat graphs, analyzing behavioral patterns, and running CARVER risk assessments. It uses OpenAI function calling with Meilisearch-backed indexes.

What is AIPM (AI Presence Management)?

AIPM is a tool that audits how AI models (GPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity) perceive and recommend your brand. It calculates an AIPM-NPS score by directly querying AI models, analyzes your website structure for AI crawler readiness, and provides optimization recommendations. Think 'SEO for the LLM era.'

Is the Epstein Files search free?

Yes. The Epstein Files Search at epstein.dugganusa.com offers a free tier with 500 queries per day. It covers all 12 DOJ EFTA datasets (400K+ documents), 2M+ ICIJ offshore entities, and 2M+ federal decisions. Professional and enterprise tiers are available for researchers and journalists needing higher limits.

Who founded DugganUSA?

DugganUSA was founded by Patrick Duggan on December 1, 2025, in Minnesota. Patrick's background includes Dell EMC, Palo Alto Networks, and embedded work at Microsoft on JEDI/Azure Stack. The company's D-U-N-S number is 14-363-3562.

What is the DugganUSA STIX feed?

DugganUSA operates a free STIX 2.1 threat intelligence feed at analytics.dugganusa.com/api/v1/stix-feed. It contains 1M+ indicators of compromise including botnet C2s, malicious IPs, and attack infrastructure. The feed is TAXII 2.1 compliant and is consumed by major organizations including Microsoft, AT&T, Amazon, and defense contractors.

AWS Had an Outage. We Didn't Notice.

Patrick Duggan
Oct 20, 2025
3 min read

# AWS Had an Outage. We Didn't Notice.

**Author:** Patrick Duggan

Yesterday I published ["We Don't Have Databases. We Have Velocity."](https://www.dugganusa.com/post/we-don-t-have-databases-we-have-velocity) - a piece about how DugganUSA runs zero relational databases and ships faster because of it.

Last night, AWS had an outage.

This morning, Zapier is down.

**DugganUSA status:** 100% operational. 3/3 services healthy. Zero impact.

I wish I could say I planned this timing. I didn't. But the universe has a sense of humor.

The Outage Timeline

**October 19, 2025 (night):** AWS experiences service disruption. Half the internet slows down or stops. Reddit fills with "is AWS down?" posts. DevOps teams scramble.

**October 20, 2025 (morning):** Zapier (enterprise automation darling, built on cloud infrastructure) reports service degradation. Workflows fail. Integrations stall.

**DugganUSA:** Still shipping. Blog posts publishing. APIs responding. Status page showing green.

Why We Didn't Notice

**We're not on AWS.**

That's it. That's the whole reason.

DugganUSA runs on Azure. When AWS goes down, we keep running. When Zapier fails, our automation (Judge Dredd compliance checks, blog publishing, analytics aggregation) keeps executing.

**This isn't luck. It's architecture.**

Born Without Sin (Reprise)

In *The Shawshank Redemption*, Andy Dufresne escapes because he's patient, methodical, and willing to crawl through shit to reach freedom. The warden never suspected him because Andy didn't fit the pattern of previous escape attempts.

DugganUSA doesn't fit the pattern of enterprise SaaS. We don't have:

- AWS dependencies (we're Azure-native)

- Database sprawl (flat files in blob storage)

- Zapier integrations (we script our own automation)

- Legacy technical debt (Born Without Sin, remember?)

**When AWS goes down, we don't crawl through shit. We just keep shipping.**

The Dependencies You Don't See

Most startups don't realize how dependent they are until the dependency fails.

**Common invisible dependencies:**

- **AWS:** "Everyone uses it, so it must be reliable" (until it isn't)

- **Zapier:** "No-code automation is faster than scripting" (until Zapier is down)

- **Managed databases:** "We don't have time to manage infrastructure" (until the managed service bills $500/month or goes read-only during an outage)

**DugganUSA philosophy:**

- **Azure:** Diversified cloud (not all eggs in AWS basket)

- **Scripts:** `node scripts/publish-blog-post.js` doesn't need Zapier's permission

- **Flat files:** Blob storage doesn't have "database connectivity issues"

The Cost of Resilience

**You'd think this level of operational independence costs more.**

**It doesn't.**

**DugganUSA monthly Azure bill:** $130/month (was $218, just optimized 40%)

**Typical startup with AWS + RDS + Zapier:**

- AWS compute: $150/month

- RDS managed Postgres: $200/month

- Zapier Pro: $50/month

- **Total: $400/month**

**We're spending 67% less AND we didn't notice the AWS outage.**

The Real Moat

In *Moneyball*, Billy Beane asks: "If he's a good hitter, why doesn't he hit good?" The scouts talk about his swing, his attitude, his girlfriend. Billy just wants to know: does he get on base?

**DugganUSA gets on base:**

- **180+ days uptime** (measured, not claimed)

- **100% operational during AWS outage** (proven last night)

- **DORA Elite velocity** (6 deploys last week, zero downtime)

- **$130/month infrastructure** (not $400+)

The moat isn't technical cleverness. It's **operational reality**. While competitors debug why their Zapier workflows stopped, we're shipping.

When Resilience Matters

**Pre-revenue startups shouldn't over-optimize for scale.** I'm not saying every company needs to avoid AWS or Zapier.

**But you should know your dependencies:**

- Can you ship if AWS goes down?

- Can you automate if Zapier fails?

- Can you operate if your database vendor has an outage?

**If the answer is no, you're not resilient. You're lucky.**

The Lesson

**1999:** Everyone builds on Oracle. Oracle raises prices. Startups pay or die.

**2010:** Everyone builds on AWS. AWS has an outage. Half the internet stops.

**2025:** Everyone builds on Zapier + managed databases. Services go down. Workflows stall.

**DugganUSA:** Built on Azure, flat files, and scripts. AWS outage happens. We don't notice.

**Born Without Sin means we don't inherit other people's technical debt OR their outages.**

**P.S.** - If you're reading this on October 20, 2025, and Zapier is still down... you're reading a blog post published via `node scripts/publish-blog-post.js`, not a Zapier workflow. Just saying.

**P.P.S.** - Yes, I'm bragging. 180+ days uptime, zero AWS dependency, and a blog post that went live 12 hours before the AWS outage? The universe handed me this one. I'm taking the W.