Google solves long Gmail outage, but questions remain

Late Friday night Google solved the third Gmail outage of the past two weeks,
but questions remain about the stability of the Webmail service, which is
affecting the Google Apps hosted software suite.

Like the previous two
outages, the latest one occurred as a login error that locked users out of their
accounts. This time, some users were prevented from accessing their accounts for
more than 24 hours.

All three outages affected not only individual Gmail
users but also people who use it as part of the Google Apps suite of
collaboration and communication applications.

Google acknowledged the
Gmail problem Friday and said it affected "a small subset" of the service's
users. The company didn't immediately comment about what is causing the
recurring login problem, nor did it provide a more specific figure for the
amount of Gmail users affected.

The long outage was painful for several
Google Apps users contacted via e-mail.

Denmark's chapter of Fair
Allocation of Infotech Resources (FAIR), an international nonprofit group, just
started using Google Apps. When the outage hit, system developer Benjamin Bach
was showing the suite to his colleagues, ahead of the planned launch of FAIR
Denmark's Web site this week.

The outage lasted more than 24 hours.
"Seeing such a long outage during the very first few days makes us wonder if a
free solution provided by Google is actually 'pro' enough for us. We cannot
correspond with schools in Africa or partners in Denmark and afford being
out-of-mail for a whole day," Bach said.

FAIR, based in Norway, is devoted to
supplying computer products to developing countries. The Denmark chapter is just
getting off the ground and expects to grow its Apps user base from four people
to up to 20.

Google Apps comes in versions, including Basic and
Education, which are free, and Premier, which costs US$50 per user per year and
includes additional functionality, a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee for Gmail,
and phone technical support.

"I can give them a lot of credit for
providing a free service, but they lose some of that when saying 'your e-mail is
totally inaccessible, and we're not going to tell you why or for how long.' It's
arrogant. I'm a system administrator, so I deserve to know a little more," Bach
said.

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