GMail outage outs the Cloud-Issue
On September 1st we saw a major outage of the GMail web-interface. Google has since made some statements via the the Official GMail Blog. All in all the issue was not a major blow to the world as one might have suspected before-hand. In fact the world has pretty much gone on as before simply doing a smooth failover.
This means that we know how to fail over, but it also debunks a myth that has been used my cloud-computing enthusiasts to acquire new customers: “The cloud will always stay up”.
That statement has just proven false by the most potent cloud currently in existence. That still does not mean that cloud computing does not have its merits; I actually use several cloud services myself and for good reason. However it does out the “we are always reliable” as the marketing speak and myth it is.
I think it is time that cloud evangelists looked at the facts and then used those to promote cloud services. There are after all a few very excellent reasons to use cloud services.
- Cloud- Services are globally accessible
- Cloud-Services are scalable on short notice
- Cloud-Services outsource to shared cost operations
- Cloud-Services reduce the initial investment
