The Cloud is Down, So Who You Gonna Call?
As we’ve covered before, there’s no data source (to our knowledge) that compiles the downtime of on-premise file sharing solutions, nor of the mid-market cloud vendors. When one becomes available, please let us know. This of course is not the case with the major cloud providers. The moment a major outage is reported, the tech media is all over the news – and rightly so.
Chances are, you or someone you know was affected by one of these outages in the past year. The folks over at NeverFail put together a nice list of their Top 10 Cloud Outages of 2013 – outages that we wanted to highlight in order to reinforce the need for fast, reliable technical support. Let’s take a look at a few of their selections:
Microsoft’s Windows Azure
- Date: October 30, 2013
- Duration: Over 20 hours
- Failure: A sub-component of the system failed worldwide
- Impact: Every single Azure region was affected (including Western United States, Western Europe, Southeast Asia, South Central United States, Northern Europe, North Central United States, East Asia, and Eastern United States).
Our take: In a world where every minute counts, 20 hours – essentially an entire business day – must have seemed like an eternity. As an MSP, this is the scenario you dread. Not only does it reflect poorly on you (even though it’s not your fault) it comes with an expensive opportunity cost. Every moment you’re trying to resolve this issue is a minute you cannot spend on more productive matters. The good news for companies leveraging the services if an MSP is that they more than likely had a direct line of support for questions and updates.
- Date: August 16, 2013
- Duration: less than 5 minutes
- Failure: All of its services went down
- Fallout: The volume of global Internet traffic plunged by about 40 percent
Our take: If you had to use one stat to show just how gigantic Google has become, this would be it: 5 minutes of downtime and global internet traffic plummeted by 40 percent. This should serve as a reminder for MSPs and their clients that even a minute of downtime is costly, regardless of the industry.
OTC Markets Group Inc.
- Date: November 7, 2013
- Duration: over 5 hours
- Failure: A network failure due to a “lack of current quotation information,” prompted a complete shutdown in trading of over-the-counter stocks in the U.S.
- Impact: The shutdown happened on one of the biggest trading sessions this year as Twitter Inc.’s shares debuted. While the disruption only paused less significant equities such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it tested investors’ nerves following a series of technical mishaps since August and exacerbated concerns about problems in the electronic infrastructure underpinning U.S. exchanges.
Our take: It’s important for cloud vendors and MSPs to understand that the mere possibility of downtime is a scary thought for businesses. So when the cloud experiences downtime – even if it’s just for a minute – you can be sure that they are already thinking about a possible on-premise alternative.
Will 2014 be the year that cloud downtime becomes a thing of the past? Probably not. Until that day comes, make sure your clients know that you have their back.
