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Storms building in Microsoft's cloud

Blue cirrus of death
Wednesday, 18 March 2009, 16:19

USERS OF MICROSOFT'S CLOUD COMPUTING experiment suffered an overnight outage during which time none of them could get at their applications.

The Azure project is supposed to show the reliability of cloud computing. Currently only a test release of Azure is available, and some early adopters are running applications on it.

However, for nearly 24 hours the network was down, fortunately no one really noticed until they came into work on Monday. Microsoft fixed the problem within an a hour after realising that it had one.

While users did not expect an early test release of a product to run smoothly, the Azure program is supposed to show how shoving your software on the cloud can make life easy for you.

With Google and Microsoft also having outages on their Gmail and Hotmail services last week, many corporates will be wondering if Web-based services are ready to be used in anger yet.

The shy and retiring Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer plans to make the infrastructure generally available by November 2009.

He said that Redmond will give developers more information about how to build applications on Azure and use other features of the network at its annual MIX conference, which is scheduled to start today in Las Vegas. The company will also unveil new features of Azure at the event.

He probably would have preferred that Azure had not had a blue screen of death two days before he takes to the podium and probably will be having a quiet word with those responsible. µ

 

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Comments
In the words of...

In the words of Nelson Muntz...

...Ha Ha!

posted by : David, 18 March 2009 Complain about this comment
Big Mouth

Is Ballmer capable of having a quiet word?

posted by : Developer, 18 March 2009 Complain about this comment
Big Brother in the works?

I see the renegade users one day running underground Linux because free open source code has been baned by the Oboma Hussein regime. Cloud computing through government control of all documents will be monitored for the evil believers in the right to freedom.

posted by : Regulas, 18 March 2009 Complain about this comment
No clouds in the sky

Duh! Anyone who has worked with the Internet can tell you that 100% availability is never gonna happen.

I thought the whole point behind clouds was to distribute an application across multiple systems so that even a network failure wouldn't scarf things up.

Cloud computing - Clusterf**king for the new millenium.

posted by : Rich Wargo, 18 March 2009 Complain about this comment
@Rich Wargo

"100% availability is never gonna happen"

That's a bold statement, given how fast the technology is changing.

I'll make my own bold statement:

Cloud computing will become a fact of life, and it's simply a matter of when, not if.

It's the Internet Jim, but not as we know it.

posted by : Justin Time, 19 March 2009 Complain about this comment
Duck

Look out for flying chairs. Some poor admin is about to catch a hot one to the head :-)

posted by : Ian, 19 March 2009 Complain about this comment
Could have reported on the issue

The issue is cloud computing is just as unreliable as it was in the 1970's.

The issue is connectivity, but you fail to report that and continue on the cloud computing dream.
The only people behind cloud computing are those whom want to control your personal data by it being housed in a central location. Sad thing is The Inquirer has fallen for it hook line and sinker. I see no real story here, just propaganda full of hatred from the sad individual whom wrote this that calls themselves a so called journalist.

posted by : Minotaur, 19 March 2009 Complain about this comment
User-transparent experience

Microsoft will no doubt design their cloud computing applications with the same care that they put into their other fine products. You probably won't be able to even tell the difference. It will be as reliable as an Xbox 360, as crash-proof and resistant to malware as WinXP!

On second thought, I think Ill go with Linux and Google.

posted by : cumulus_numbness, 19 March 2009 Complain about this comment
Update Reboot Needed, That’s Why

It had just done an automatic run of Dimdows Update, and it was waiting for somebody to click OK on the “Dimdows Needs To Reboot” dialog.

posted by : Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 20 March 2009 Complain about this comment
G'z. Calm down!

I've been beavering away at a music app to allow users to share data via Mesh and the Cloud. Now wherever they go their data follows. Network downtime is all but eliminated via our, quite sane, local cache for tethered devices. Atom+FeedSync is very neat and very open. If you don't want peeps reading what you have in the cloud then encrypt it.

"The only people behind cloud computing are those whom want to control your personal data by it being housed in a central location."

This is _almost_ true except the "only" people are me and my users who want access to _our_ data, whenever, wherever we are. Cloud does not assume a "central location". The data could be, and usually is, in several places.

If you don't like it... don't use it!

posted by : Matthew Porth, 20 March 2009 Complain about this comment
Clouds...

The mainframe attempted by swarms of ravenous PC's covering the Earth like the plague of cane toads covering Australia.

As for me, I'd rather have a few handy Dinosaurs than a plague of PC's. Less is more...

posted by : Drew, 22 March 2009 Complain about this comment
hotmail is down - april 10

major mail outage and other online services down

midnight april 9 ET

posted by : mira, 10 April 2009 Complain about this comment
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