Learning from Skype's day-long global outage

Convergence & VoIP This newsletter is sponsored by Alcatel-Lucent Special Report: Manage VoIP with a Lean Staff Discover how IT executives are managing the riding tide of VoIP and collaborative applications rollouts and operation despite lean network staffs with Network World's latest Special Report "VoIP and Beyond". Click here to download this Special Report. Network World's Convergence & VoIP Newsletter, 08/22/07 Learning from Skype’s day-long global outage By Steve Taylor and Larry Hettick Just two weeks after we suggested that enterprises should consider Skype as one alternative for some but not all business calls, Skype suffered an outage that affected millions of its global customers. The outage occurred mid-week last week and lasted some 12 to 24 hours and prevented users from logging into Skype for both Skype-to-Skype calls and blocked Skype’s messaging capability. Using its blog, Skype kept users updated with progress reports every few hours. On Thursday (1402 GMT) Skype reported: “Some of you may be having problems logging into Skype. Our engineering team has determined that it’s a software issue. We expect this to be resolved within 12 to 24 hours. Meanwhile, you can simply leave your Skype client running and as soon as the issue is resolved, you will be logged in. We apologize for the inconvenience. Additionally, downloads of Skype have been temporarily disabled. We will make downloads available again as quickly as possible.” By Friday morning (0700 GMT) Skype’s technical staff noted: “We’re on the road to recovery. Skype is stabilizing, but this process may continue throughout the day. An encouraging number of users can now use Skype once again. We know we’re not out of the woods yet, but we are in better shape now than we were yesterday. Finally, we’d like to dispel a couple of theories that we are still hearing. Neither Wednesday’s planned maintenance of our web-based payment services nor any form of attack was related to the current sign-on issues in any way.” By the same time, Skype’s blog had recorded over 350 user responses to the outage in a wide variety of language. Network World VoIP and Convergence Buyer's Guide Find the right products for your enterprise - fast. Our extensive database of detailed product information will quickly help you pinpoint the hardware or software you need to build out a converged voice and data network. With the side-by-side comparison tool you can evaluate product features and make the best decision for your enterprise. Click here to go to the Buyer's Guide now. Our observations: First, we still believe that Skype is a viable option for some business calls, although we reiterate our advice that enterprises should still maintain a PSTN or carrier VoIP connection as a more stable platform. Second, we note that Skype’s claim to being important across a global business community can now be substantiated by the far-flung and multilingual comments posted on the Skype blog. And finally, we commend Skype for using a Skype-sponsored blog both to keep user informed on progress and for having courage to giving users a public forum to share their concerns and comments with the entire Skype user community.   What do you think? Post a comment on this newsletter

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Contact the author: Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. For more detailed information on most of the topics discussed in this newsletter, connect to Webtorials, the premier site for Web-based educational presentations, white papers, and market research. Taylor can be reached at taylor@webtorials.com Larry Hettick is an industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience in voice and data. He is Vice President for Telecom Services and Infrastructure at Current Analysis, the leading competitive response solutions company. He can be reached at lhettick@currentanalysis.com This newsletter is sponsored by Alcatel-Lucent Special Report: Manage VoIP with a Lean Staff Discover how IT executives are managing the riding tide of VoIP and collaborative applications rollouts and operation despite lean network staffs with Network World's latest Special Report "VoIP and Beyond". Click here to download this Special Report. ARCHIVE Archive of the Convergence & VoIP Newsletter. BONUS FEATURE IT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE You've got the technology snapshot of your choice delivered to your inbox each day. Extend your knowledge with a print subscription to the Network World newsweekly, Apply here today. International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES To subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: networking.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007