Outage Knocks Gmail Offline For Many Users

Many readers noted an outage affecting Google's gmail service last night. Firmafest points to a statement from Google, according to which only a small subset of users were affected. According to reader CaptHarlock, mail itself remained accessible through IMAP clients, and the chat feature via external applications. jw3 asks "Of course, gmail is just one of the many providers of web-based e-mails. When I look around, almost everyone seems to be using them nowadays. So — what do you do? Do you trust that the site of your web-based e-mail provider will never go down? Do you make backups of all your e-mails?" (Some readers still seem to be unable to reach the site, too.)

Comments

Ma.gnolia!

[stoolpigeon]

I never worried about backups. Then I watched this video and now I back up everything. For all I know this "Google" company is a couple seventeen year olds with an old 386sx in their mom's basement. I like their stuff but I can't depend on them to know how to protect my data.

Thunderbird Public Service Announcement

[eldavojohn]

Use Thunderbird with GMail and configure it so that every time there's a new message it is synced to your local hard drive but also left on the server (IMAP probably though I think the same can be done with POP).

My linux box at home has been doing this for years, I just leave Thunderbird open and set my monitor to sleep after 15 minutes of inactivity. I don't care if my GMail and college mail accounts temporarily go down, it's all mirrored on that machine.

Anti-Microsoft zealot bonus rant: I stopped using Hotmail when I realized I could not access it outside of Outlook Express ... I'm aware of ways around this but there's a simpler solution: don't use Hotmail. This and the fact that (last I checked) it didn't support forwarding are two very good reasons to move on to a free mail service more dedicated to you. The choice is yours.

Re:Thunderbird Public Service Announcement

[Elledan]

Yup, I just use Hotmail for registrations and such which I'm sure may result in spam and other unwanted messages. It's a serious pain to know whether you have got new messages (I don't use MSN), so I hardly use it. GMail's IMAP function on the other hand is perfect. It really elevates this email service from Yet Another Web-Based Email to something that is actually usable and integrates well with my normal work flow.

Great job, Google.

Re:Thunderbird Public Service Announcement

[D Ninja]

You don't even need to use Hotmail for spam anymore. Instead, you can use GMail's (+) feature. So...when signing up on a site, type something like...

your.email+spam@gmail.com

Put whatever you want after the + sign. It will still route directly to your inbox. Then, just setup a filter to put anything with "+spam" to the spam folder or the trash or wherever.

It's a beautiful thing.

Never go down?

[onion2k]

Do you trust that the site of your web-based e-mail provider will never go down?

100% uptime is possible, sure, but you're going to have to pay for it. It'll be horrifically expensive (thousands of dollars a month) because you'll need multiple levels of redunancy across your MTA server(s), web server(s), and connectivity, in two or three locations.

So, because that's a ridiculous expense for practically everyone, you should just chill out. A morning without your email isn't going to kill you. In fact, it might even be good for you. Take some time out. Go for a walk. Spend a few hours with your wife/kids/friends/dog.

People are talking about this outage like it was the end of the world. It made the BBC news! I swear the entire world has lost all sense of perspective (except me, natch).

(I was tempted to make a joke about email services being like girlfriends and how you don't need one that never goes down, but I thought that might be tacky. :) )

Re:Never go down?

[aclarke]

No, he's not oversimplifying things. If your business relies on email uptime, then rely on a system that will provide/guarantee that.

I'm sure I'm not the only person here who has worked on systems where an hour of downtime meant many thousands of dollars of lost sales. If being down for 4 hours a month costs you $40,000 in lost sales and $12,000 in lost profits, then be willing to spend $12,000 per month more to get the extra 4 hours per month of uptime. If people rely on a free service without a sufficient SLA for this type of business, then they are being foolish.

Personally I host my domains' emails through Google. You know what? I didn't even know it was down. And even if I did, I wouldn't have really cared that much. I would have done one of the many many many other things on my to-do list that don't require email access, and would have expected that if a client was trying to reach me that badly during that period, they'd have just picked up the phone and called.

Good thing Google offers IMAP

[trmanco]

I always had access to my emails, just:

Enable IMAP:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=77695

and configure your email client:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=75726

No Gmail fail for me...

Beta Testing

[kellyb9]

Come on guys? what do you expect, it's still in beta testing.

Re:Or do you do it yourself?

[Nursie]

Expensive?

No. Grab a small box like a linksys nslu2 or a nano-itx board, ADSL with a static IP (I pay an extra £1 permonth for the IP) and a domain name.

Difficult?

No, easy! You just need to install linux (pref. debian) set up an MTA like Postfix or exim, make sure to hook it up to a DNSBL or two, maybe spam-assassin for filtering, rDNS and SPF checks, header validation etc, open port 25 incoming on your router, add in dovecot for IMAP, make sure to set up your own trusted root certificates so you can connect in securely, consider a FOSS webmail solution (squirrelmail?), expose port 80 for that, make sure your passwords are good and strong, continually check for and apply security updates...

I do it. My mailserver runs off an NSLU with a 4GB USB flash stick. I don't think it's for everyone though. Whatever happened to ISPs providing email?