I researched and prepared the following table for the book I’m writing and I was amazed by the frequency of cloud outages. If you find any errors or omissions in the table please let me know!
| Service outage | Date | Duration | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon S3 | Feb 15 2008 | 4 hours | cnet |
| Amazon EC2 | Apr 07 2008 | 1 hour | techcrunch |
| Amazon S3 | Jul 20 2008 | 8.5 hours | amazon |
| Amazon EC2 | Jun 11 2009 | 7 hours | cnet |
| Amazon EC2 | Dec 09 2009 | 1 to 5 hours | datacenterknowledge |
| Google App Engine | Jun 17 2008 | 7 hours | softpedia |
| Google Gmail | Jul 16 2008 | 2.5 hours | pcworld |
| Google Apps & Gmail | Aug 06 2008 | about 15 hours | pcworld |
| Google Gmail | Aug 11 2008 | 1.5 hours | gmailblog |
| Google Gmail | Aug 15 2008 | more than 24 hours | pcworld |
| Google Gmail | Oct 16 2008 | 30 hours | pcworld |
| Google Gmail | Feb 24 2009 | 2.5 hours | googleblog |
| Google Gmail | Mar 09 2009 | up to 22 hours | cnet |
| Google network | May 14 2009 | 2 hours | arbornenetworks |
| Google App Engine | Jul 02 2009 | 6 hours | techcrunch |
| Google Gmail | Sep 01 2009 | 2 hours | gmailblog |
| Google Gmail | Sep 24 2009 | 2.5 hours | cnet |
| Microsoft Windows Live | Feb 26 2008 | About 6 hours | microsoft watch |
| Microsoft Hotmail | Mar 12 2009 | 5 hours | networkworld |
| Microsoft Azure | Mar 13 2009 | 22 hours | networkworld |
| Microsoft Sidekick | Oct 04 2009 | 6 days + total loss of contact data | cnet |
| Salesforce.com | Feb 11 2008 | 6 hours | zdnet |
| Salesforce.com | Jan 06 2009 | 1 hour | The Register |
[...] The results stem from research conducted by Mark Williams, a cloud computing consultant based out of the United Kingdom who is writing a book about cloud computing. Overall duration of the outages are based upon Williams research. He is actively looking for more instances of outages and is asking people to report examples of problems. [...]
By: Top 5 Cloud Outages of the Past Two Years: Lessons Learned - www.Korallenkacke.com on February 1, 2010
at 10:16 pm
I’m not sure if you count it or not, but Rankspace has been down a fair bit.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/29/yes-rackspace-is-down-and-so-are-many-of-your-favorite-sites/
By: Scott Herbert on February 2, 2010
at 10:02 am
Hi Scott,
Yes you’re right. The four companies I mentioned are just famous examples or providers who experienced outages that were reported – they are not alone. I decided to just research four companies for the book because the table was getting big and my deadline was fast approaching!
Thanks for your comment.
Mark
By: drmiw on February 5, 2010
at 4:25 pm
I am surprised to see some of the downtime lasting a whole day. This level of downtime is not acceptable if you run a business.
By: Cloud computing company on March 16, 2010
at 2:07 pm
Yes, and Salesforce and Google Apps are the two products you guys implement for your customers (according to your website). How do you get around objections to do with cloud outages? Do you have any good stats on internal IT outages to draw comparison with?
By: drmiw on March 16, 2010
at 2:59 pm