Blackberry problem solved - now what?

RIM identified the problem that caused Monday’s blackout, yesterday, but how IT will respond is still an open question.

Rim reported yesterday that an early investigation pointed to a problem with an upgrade of a data routing system. The upgrade was part of an ongoing effort to expand capacity for long-term growth, it said.

The New York Times notes that the “finding appears to contradict assurances from RIM that it had resolved last year’s problems. It also raised questions about the company’s highly centralized approach to handling e-mail messages, a stark contrast to the extremely diffuse structure of the Internet.”

“All e-mail messages traveling to and from BlackBerrys must pass through one of R.I.M.’s network operations centers. The company did not respond to questions about those centers on Tuesday, but it has previously said that North American messages are handled by two operations located near its head office in Waterloo, Ontario. Several analysts speculated that because not all eight million North American BlackBerry users were affected on Monday, only one of those centers was plagued by software trouble."

The bigger concern should will be on longer term growth. I said on Monday that enterprises would have canned any voice provider who experienced the kinds of outages that have hit the RIM network this year. If nothing else, IT leaders should be considering other options and if they don’t then it’ll be their job on the line next time.

“Information-technology managers should be looking for alternatives, said Avi Greengart, research director at Current Analysis,” reports Reuters.

"Any outage is a cause for concern, particularly if you're an IT manager," Greengart said. "Your job is to ensure service availability."