Google Outage Lesson: Don't Get Stuck in a Cloud

Google has apologized for yesterday's service outage that left 14 percent of its user base without Google's wide variety of online services for a few hours. Google said in a blog post the outage came down to a simple traffic jam at an Asian data center. The search giant described the situation by using the analogy of a large number of airplanes being rerouted through one airport that was not equipped for a massive influx of traffic. But in Google's case, it wasn't airplanes looking for a place to land; it was cloud-based data trying to stay up in the sky.

The confusion surrounding the issue was evident on Twitter where users quickly used the #googlefail hashtag to get the word out and scream bloody murder. One Tweep, named Leigh said, "the Internet dies without Google." She complained that she couldn't access her bank account online, because the bank needed Google Analytics -- Mountain View's web traffic analysis utility -- to work. "This is made of lame," Leigh said.

The day the Gcloud fell

But is Google that important to today's Internet? Well, a quick look at this graph from the Web security company Arbor Networks shows a canyon-sized hole in North American Internet traffic during the G-outage. With a wide variety of practical services like Gmail, Google Docs, Maps, Calendar, and even Google search gone, online activities came to a standstill for many people during the Google blackout. On the National Business Review's New Zealand site a reader named Karen complained of losing important business appointments in Google Calendar while other entries were duplicated and even tripled, creating a confusing mess. Let's hope Karen was able to sort it all out.

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