Google Blasted over Gmail, Google Apps Outages

Google Blasted over Gmail,Google Apps OutagesBy Clint Boulton

Google Blasted Over Gmail,Google Apps Outages1. Has Google Set the Bar Too High?Google’s Gmail and Apps outage caused some awkward moments. “It’s extremely annoying. I was just recommending this service to a client today. Now I’m not so sure it’s reliable enough. I know every hosted service has outages, I just expected better from Google.” –

Google Blasted Over Gmail,Google Apps Outages2. Too Much Downtime, Too Slow to Fix”I’m concerned that this issue, 502 error access, has occurred more often than ideal. Considering Google’s solid infrastructure and overall reliability, it’s puzzling. Also, it seems that in the past it’s taken many hours to resolve the issue.” –

Google Blasted Over Gmail,Google Apps Outages3. Is Paid Access More Reliable?User Arthur 5005, who uses Gmail to collaborate with his team of graphic designers, loves Gmail even though the Aug. 6 outage affected a “mission-critical account.” He wonders if his premium account is less vulnerable to downtime than our standard. This is a crucial question as Google looks to invite more users to its Google Apps Premier Edition, which costs $50 per user per year.

Google Blasted Over Gmail,Google Apps Outages4. Is Gmail Still Better than the Rest?”As this is the first time in several months we have experienced a hiccup I will hold my opinion on Google,” wrote Matthieu Heimer Aug. 6. “When we had Yahoo as a host, our e-mail was going out domain-wide weekly. And when it went down everything was lost. Hopefully that is not the case with Google.”

Google Blasted Over Gmail,Google Apps Outages5. Got Downtime? Get LostTim, whose company sells on-demand services and has been using Google Apps for more than two years, says Google’s software has issues every week. He has grown so frustrated that he has lost patience in this post Aug. 6: “A poor record when it comes to ‘downtime’ is, as it should be, a deal breaker 100% of the time.”

Google Blasted Over Gmail,Google Apps Outages6. Users Advise Google on Backup PlansAfter Google fixes its Apps and Gmail hiccup Aug. 7, user silverfox says Google must fix the procedure for fixing problems that happen on its servers. “There is really no excuse for not having a procedure in place that can recover from any problem by switching to a redundant, guaranteed stable system in a matter of minutes, not 15 hours.”

Google Blasted Over Gmail,Google Apps Outages7. New Gmail Outage, Similar ComplaintsBetween 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. PDT on Aug. 11, Gmail is again paralyzed by an outage that affects some of the same users affected the previous week. User patience begins to wear thin: “One of my two Gmail accounts was down last week for 24 hours with the ‘502’ error. Both of them are down now with 502. … What’s up, Google? Can I depend on Gmail or not?”

Google Blasted Over Gmail,Google Apps Outages8. Who You Gonna Call? Not GoogleUsers are vexed by the lack of a phone support service at Google. The company offers 24/7 phone support for its Premier Edition, but if you’re only using the standard version, the company’s main mode of communication with the end user is the discussion group, where “Google Guides” respond to e-mail complaints from users. Users dislike this, as we see in this Gmail group.

Google Blasted Over Gmail,Google Apps Outages9. New Gmail Outage Hits the BlogosphereGigaOm’s Om Malik wrote on his blog Aug. 11: “Given that our company relies on Google’s Gmail and GTalk service, our operations came to a standstill this afternoon. We aren’t a large company but the losses are very real, especially in productivity. I wonder how the big customers of Google-

Google Blasted Over Gmail,Google Apps Outages10. Is Google at a Tipping Point?”I’ve been working in the computer industry for 10 years now, and I am simply ASTONISHED that Google does such a terrible job of handling situations like this. No detailed message about what the cause of the problem is, no ETA until a fix, nothing. It really smacks of a “we-don’t-care-about-you” attitude from Google. They need to fix this if they want to be taken more seriously in the workplace,” said user Douglas Muth, Aug. 11.

Google Blasted Over Gmail,Google Apps Outages11. Can We Trust the Web as a Platform?Google, with its one million servers, is supposed to be the most reliable provider of Internet-based “cloud computing” on the planet. If the company suffers regular outages, can we really trust the Web as a platform for our business communication and collaboration needs?

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