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Outages Leave Google Apps Admins In the Hotseat
snydeq writes "This week's Google outages left several Google Apps admins in the lurch — and many of them are second-guessing their advocacy for making the switch to hosted apps, InfoWorld reports. The outages, which affected both Gmail and Apps, 'could serve as a deterrent to some IT and business managers who might not be ready to ditch conventional software packages that are installed on their servers,' according to the article. 'If we began to experience a similar outage more than about two or three business hours per quarter, we'd probably make Google Apps and Gmail a backup solution to a locally hosted mail system, if we used it at all,' said one Apps admin. 'And it would likely be years before we'd try a cloud-based collaborative system again from any vendor.' Coupled with recent Apple and Amazon cloud issues, these Google outages are being viewed by some as big wins for Microsoft."
When my boss tells me he wants 0 downtime (or even five-9 downtime), I show him a quote for the 7-figure cost of creating such a system.
Apparently Google is expected to hit that level of uptime all while charging either nothing for their standard edition or $50 per user per year for the premier.
I wonder how much downtime the companies that are using Google Apps would experience if they had to pay for their own redundancy?
I'm a big tall mofo.
Google Apps Premier is not free - it's 50$ per year per account.
I'm using it for my private mail. I like it. But i don't expect 100% uptime - especially for just 50Ã per year per account.
Because it's a refutation of Google's business model (cloud based, for want of a better way of phrasing it) compared to Microsoft's (locally based tech).
I remain sceptical, as it it would seem that Google would have to be less reliable than local kit in order to make it worth switching back, even before you take into account extra costs for doing it locally. (How much more do you want to spend to get an extra hour per quarter in reliability?)
Nevertheless, IANASA so I don't know the data behind this decision.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
There are only two IT solutions out there in the minds of too many people: Microsoft, and non-Microsoft.
To go with Microsoft is the easy, sure road. It is the standard. It is what is expected, what is known to be safe, what will always work. Any problems you encounter here are met with "well, computers always have problems don't they?"
To go with non-Microsoft is hard and uncertain. It is not expected, nor "the standard", and suspected to be extremely unsafe. The smallest problem will be countered with "you and your stupid ideas. Now go and call LocalRetailerInc for a certified Microsoft solution, and be glad I don't fire your ass over this fiasco!"
Google is not Microsoft, so according to the business logic described above, if it doesn't work the only possible alternative is to use Microsoft.
Two weeks ago a transformer blew out in the building I work in. First there was no power for 3 hours, then temporary power as a large generator was hooked up, but it was not big enough to run the AC, so we did no turn on the servers. It took another day to get a large enough generator (about the size of a tractor trailer). In total, our business was shut down completely for a day and a half due.
I don't think you can even get a SLA from the power company.
Google Apps went down for 3 hours.
Shit happens.