Gmail Outage Causes Worries

Google's Gmail went down for a couple of hours on Monday, and apart from anger, it raised a few questions about cloud computing.

It’s happened to us all, and it’s the last thing anyone wants. For about two hours on Monday, users of Google’s Gmail were unable to access their accounts. In a world that relies on e-mail to communicate, that’s the equivalent on being marooned on a desert island.

The cause was relatively simple, a problem in Google’s contacts system that prevented Gmail loading, the company explained, and was almost groveling in its apologies.

In his blog, Todd Jackson, Gmail product manager, wrote:

"Many of you had trouble accessing Gmail for a couple of hours this afternoon, and we’re really sorry. We heard loud and clear today how much people care about their Gmail accounts."

The company received a number of calls about the outage, especially from those who use Gmail for company mail, and there were numerous Twitter postings about the incident. Much of the criticism wasn’t at the outage itself, but at Google for failing to use other routes to let customers know what was happening.

Google has promised a full review which could result in a change of internal procedures. Last month an incident left customers unable to access Google Docs and Spreadsheets for over an hour.

To some complainants, it raised questions about the stability of cloud computing. But that wasn’t the issue at all; what happened could easily have occurred with traditional or Web-based e-mail.