Google
Google has estimated that the glitch affected 14 per cent of its users

Google owns up to service outage

Routing 'traffic jam' knocks out Gmail, YouTube and search

Shaun Nichols in San Francisco

Google is blaming an error in its traffic routing system for a service outage on Thursday that lasted several hours.

The company said that an error in its servers at 3:48pm GMT caused several Google services to begin routing all traffic through its servers in Asia. The resulting crush of traffic caused a slowdown in Gmail, YouTube and Google search. Some users were completely unable to access the sites.

Advertisement

After services were restored, Google's senior vice president of operations, Urs Hoelzle, issued a statement to explain the outage, which the company estimates to have affected 14 per cent of users.

Hoelzle likened the event to an air-traffic error which would route all flights to a single airport. Because of the error, many users were left waiting in a 'holding pattern' to access the sites.

"We've been working hard to make our services ultrafast and 'always on', so it's especially embarrassing when a glitch like this one happens," Hoelzle wrote.

"We're very sorry that it happened, and you can be sure that we'll be working even harder to make sure that a similar problem won't happen again."

The is not the first time Google has experienced a major outage. A Gmail problem in April left many users unable to access their accounts, and caused some in the industry to question the viability of the service as a reliable communication tool for enterprises.

  • Have your say
  • Send to a friend
  • Print
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • Share

Do you agree?

Related whitepapers

Related jobs

Most watched

iPhone

Video Review: iPhone 3GS

We put Apple's latest iPhone through its paces

V3.co.uk weekly debrief, 5 Feb 2010

This week we cover the continuing controversy surrounding the Orange T-Mobile deal

Analysis and Reports

Using managed services to protect mobile data users from the latest security threats

Counting the cost of data security: the benefits of secured mobile services

Shifting Disaster Recovery targets with SharePoint and SQL server configurations

Using a hostbased recovery system for mission-critical systems

Poll

Adobe Flash poll

Adobe Flash poll

Do you agree with Steve Jobs about Flash being buggy?

View poll results

Advertisement

White paper library

Keep up to date with the latest products, services and technologies from the world's leading IT companies; IThound.com brings you over 6,000 white papers, case studies and analyst reports.

Advertisement

Newsletter signup

Sign up for our range of FREE newsletters:

Existing User

Newsletter user login:

Enter email address to edit your newsletter preferences

Job of the week

Search thousands of IT jobs :

Search thousands of IT jobs:

Advanced search

Hiring now on ComputingCareers:

Related IT jobs

Search thousands of IT jobs :

Search thousands of IT jobs:

Advanced search

Advertisement

Spotlight

Neil Sanderson

Interview: Microsoft UK virtualisation chief Neil Sanderson

Sanderson outlines Microsoft's plans for Hyper-V, cloud computing and virtual...

Google

Google moves into social networking with Buzz

Facebook gets opposition in consumer and enterprise spheres

Nvidia

Nvidia pitches Optimus as prime notebook platform

New system pairs onboard and discrete chips

OpenDNSSEC

OpenDNSSEC service goes live

New security project encrypts Domain Name System traffic

Primary Navigation