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25 Feb 2009
Google has apologised for the two and a half hour Gmail outage on Tuesday morning, and admitted that the cause was down to datacentre maintenance.
"Lots of people around the world who rely on Gmail were disrupted during their waking and working hours, and we are very sorry. We did everything we could to restore access as soon as possible, and the issue is now resolved," said Gmail site reliability manager Acacio Cruz in a blog post.
Google had been testing new code designed to keep data geographically closer to its owner, which brought about disruption when maintenance in one datacentre caused another facility to be overloaded. This had a cascade effect, according to Google, and it took the company an hour to get it back under control.
"We know how painful an outage like this is. We run Google on Gmail, so outages like this affect us the same way they affect you," Cruz said.
In order to compensate customers for any lost business due to the outage, reports say that Google will offer 15 days of free service to businesses and organisations that pay for the email service.
The Gmail outage was not the only problem Google experienced on Tuesday. A phishing scam attacked the search firm's Google Talk chat service. Users were asked to "check out this video" by clicking on a link, but the URL directed users to a web site called ViddyHo which asked for Gmail usernames and passwords.
The scammers sending the links have now been blocked, and Google has blacklisted the ViddyHo site. Google Talk now carries a warning to users that entering any information on the page may result in identity theft or other fraud.
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Do you agree?
Not okay yet
My gmail account is not back on yet. And it's two days later.
Posted by: Deb 26 Feb 2009
Get it right next time
I hope this will not happen again and you will get it right next time. I, however, must say that personally - in South Africa, this had not effect as it seems to have had on many people around the world, but hope and pray that Google gets it right next time coz it's one of the best so far at least, I think!
Posted by: Akanyang Merementsi 25 Feb 2009
how about Hotmail's woes
Anyone using both Hotmail and Gmail like me? Every six months Bill Gates re-designs Hotmail. Problem is, they never ask us users if we need a re-design. EVERY time they mess with it, they create glitches. This past week they did their obligatory re-design - so, right in the middle of authoring a new email message the darn things jumps out of the email and cancels it on its own accord; and as a photo is being downloaded, it will jump out of the message and refuse the download. Thank the Lord for Gmail!
Posted by: Bill Williams 25 Feb 2009