Google: Aiming for 99.99 percent uptime with business Gmail

Google executives addressed recent Gmail outages and noted that the company is currently running at a 99.9 percent reliability rate. The goal: Be at 99.99 percent by the end of the quarter.

Speaking at a powwow with reporters, Google Sergey Brin spent a bit of time talking about the search giant's enterprise efforts. Last week, IBM launched a rival to Google Apps for business that undercuts Google on pricing and promises more reliability.

Brin said that Google was farther ahead on email and collaborative document editing and is adding features for the enterprise. Brin also added that Google was focusing on not just its outages, but the response to them.

For instance, one outage could have been resolved in five to 10 minutes, but the company made errors that extended recovery time to an hour. Brin said the company is also working to group customers so one outage has a limited impact.