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Unrealistic expectations and the latest Gmail outage

Summary: So Gmail went down again this morning. It's a bit of a bummer, but I keep telling myself that it's OK, since I don't have to actually do anything to make it come back up again.

Christopher Dawson

By for ZDNet Education |

So Gmail went down again this morning. It's a bit of a bummer, but I keep telling myself that it's OK, since I don't have to actually do anything to make it come back up again. All I have to do is check on the Apps Status page:

This is certainly easier than getting an internal Exchange server sorted out or resurrecting mail provided through an open source solution hosted in house. And for us, most of our users are teaching right now. They can even still access all of their Apps aside from Gmail, so in-class presentations and collaboration can go on.

Twitter, of course, is all abuzz with the latest #gfail and it's already hit Google News, but I have to wonder if we need to simply adjust our expectations a bit and keep this in perspective. I'm not saying we should lower the bar and, obviously if this becomes a chronic problem, then other cloud-based solutions will start looking mighty attractive. However, for a service that is free (or low-cost for businesses) and offers serious collaboration tools beyond email, I find it isn't too hard to bide my time when we hit a service disruption. I certainly couldn't be biding my time and having a bite of lunch if it was my mail server that went down.

If you're reading, this, though, Google, do please get my domain back up and running. I usually only take 10 minutes for lunch.

Topics: Collaboration, Browser, Cloud, Enterprise Software, Google, Outage, Software

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53 comments
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  • Unrealistic expections and the latest Gmail outage

    Gmail is down again? And you are giving them a free pass because they are Google? That is crazy talk. What you should be asking is "Why am I using this service that is constantly going down?" With an in-house solution you can have total control of your Microsoft Exchange server, just set it and forget it much like the commercial. With GMail, if you accidentally delete that important email and its attachment it is gone forever. No tape backup to bring it back.

    Don't forget about the privacy issues or confidential data. Gmail - not the solution you are looking for.
    Loverock Davidson
    Reply Vote

    • yar

      agreed. gmail for business use is suicide. but im still a google freak.
      iamrta
      Reply Vote

    • Not everywhere

      I wasn't aware it was supposed to be down - been working all day - until this article popped up.

      Now we have a new sensation. If mail goes down on some enterprise somewhere - and you can bet there's one down somewhere right now - the news is isolated and we don't hear about it.

      But if a global service loses part of its capability, then it's down. If we total all outages over all areas for a period of time, we can show horrendous performance figures.

      Was it Will Rogers who said, "Figures don't lie, but liars sure can figure."
      IT_User
      Reply Vote

    • Good Points.....

      I will stick with my in-house solutions. I don't have any redundancy, but like you said I set it and forget it(unless I do updates). Never get any complaints about email here and been up for 3 years straight, excluding updates. You would think they could get their act together, they are starting to beat blackberry in outages and blackberry isn't as tech savy as Google is. Maybe they are just getting too big for their own good, doing too much and not cleaning up the existing problems they have.
      OhTheHumanity
      Reply Vote

    • You Sir are irrational and inconsequential

      Windows is down again? And you are giving them a free pass because they are Microsoft? That is crazy talk. What you should be asking is "Why am I using this platform that is constantly going down?" With an in-cloud solution you can have total control of your documents and other data, just set it and forget it much like the commercial. With Windows, if it crashes it may be gone forever. No ancient tape backup to bring it back.

      Don't forget about the privacy issues or confidential data in a virus infested PC or just Microsoft snooping. Windows - not the solution you are looking for.
      Mikael_z
      Reply Vote

    • So, about that...

      Exchange uptime thing. It's not all that. And as for privacy, have a good long look at how bing is beginning to be connected to exchange.
      zkiwi
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Unrealistic expections and the latest Gmail outage

    Ahhhh. Words of wisdom and comfort from the "failure is an
    option" generation....
    Glomar Explorer
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Unrealistic expections and the latest Gmail outage

    This is the one problem with outsourced email. When it goes down, it goes down for everybody at the same time. A lot of IT is about control and one benefit of running your own service is that you have more control (at least in perception) when the bad things happen.
    nighthawk2007
    Reply Vote

    • Gmail did not go down for everybody!!!

      It went down for few(And I am sure a good number of them).

      I however did not experience the email outage, just the
      down time for my contacts which I have on my phone also. And this is the first outage I have had with google, My gmail account has worked even when others have claimed theirs was not.

      And if you can find a better email service for the price go out and get it.
      mrlinux
      Reply Vote

      • Shhh

        The posters here abhore reality.
        IT_User
        Reply Vote

      • It didn't go down for me either...

        ...and hasn't even once, which makes me wonder if I should believe the pundits here.
        Hmmmm..............................

        Can the choir here have something to do with the fact that Google has a roughly 15x bigger search and ad share than our fellows in Redmond?
        (Hah!)
        Mikael_z
        Reply Vote

  • RE: Unrealistic expections and the latest Gmail outage

    Gmail -- and Hotmail, for that matter -- are throwaway solutions. Need an email that will eventually become clogged with spam? There you go. Critical applications? No way!
    kholt81936
    Reply Vote

    • You must never have used gmail....

      I get maybe one email month that is spam in my inbox,
      however the spam folder ends up with a lot, but after 30 days it is automatically deleted, no user interaction required.
      mrlinux
      Reply Vote

  • M$ makes noise about it

    But nobody cares about FUD.
    Gmail is the best free email arround!
    Linux Geek
    Reply Vote

    • Too bad your gmail is not working

      at moment :)
      GuidingLight
      Reply Vote

      • ...

        until today right? lol
        iamrta
        Reply Vote

      • But mine is

        And somewhere somebody's enterprise mail is down.

        What's your point?
        IT_User
        Reply Vote

    • Re: M$

      The difference is that Microsoft doesn't tout Hotmail as a business solution with 99.99% (or whatever it is) uptime. Google is the one setting these high expectations.
      jntowers
      Reply Vote

    • Noise about it

      Linux geek, you haven't heard yet that no one cares about your opinion.
      We found out you are human bot! Working for free for the FSF and its god, Stallman.
      e_ecruz
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Unrealistic expections and the latest Gmail outage

    What exactly is an "expection?"
    inverse137@...
    Reply Vote
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