Today's reliance on web apps means that even the smallest outage can have a huge impact on business. For example, my day to day business life is completely reliant on web apps. I use Skype to make calls, Google apps for analytics and tracking, Microsoft WebMail and many more. It's no surprise then that when Twitter's Fail Whale goes up it makes the front page of online news sites. Outages are uncommon but can still occur and depending on the day you may find Quickbooks down, Google Mail inaccessible or Facebook shutdown. So it came as no surprise today when I ran into a new website determined to give you up to date news on Cloud outages. The website aptly named Cloudfail.net promises to provide up to date statuses on Cloud app providers. Just like the weather channel provides up dates on rain, snow and sunshine I think we're bound to have the same soon for the Cloud.
Another site providing updates for websites and web apps is Downrightnow. One of the features of Downrightnow is a ticker which shows how many days since the last incident which reminds me of those signs you pass at construction sites stating it's been X days since our last accident. Perhaps Cloud provider websites will someday do the same?
Although the goal is always to have 100% uptime in reality in the technology world anything can happen. I feel that we're beginning to close in on the Holy Grail of 100% Uptime but we're not quite there.
What do you think? Do you have 100% uptime? Do you think it will happen soon or are 99.8% and 99.9% the best we can ever guarantee?
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