Google Docs was down for approximately 45 minutes today.
This doesn’t just hurt Google’s reputation, but puts a ding in the entire Cloud industry. It gives all of the naysayers out there ammunition when citing reasons why cloud computing won’t work in their environment.
Although Google Docs has been very stable during it’s life, down time is simply not acceptable. We’re not talking about 99.99% uptime. The uptime needs to approach Six Sigma levels – which would be 3.4 down units per million – or just under two minutes per year.
I know that sounds unreasonable to some – but the industry will never hit the mainstream until it can reach these type of numbers.
Google, Amazon, Microsoft and the rest of the cloud providers need to hire some Blackbelts from GE and Motorrola. They have to set seemingly unreachable goals if they want to transform the entire IT industry. Anything less is simply not enough.
