cloud computing failures

Cloud Computing is not a solution to all the problems of an organization. That's what happened here.". Their websites are filled with case studies explaining how various companies have reaped enormous benefits by embracing cloud computing. Over four and a half hours, the total number of transactions affected could have been as high as $32 million. 7: The Salesforce slipup. They also faulted the developers for inadequate testing and a lack of oversight and accountability. The technology may have evolved since then, but the lesson remains the same: When it comes to crucial data, never assume someone else is automatically protecting you. "I'd like to apologize to you, our customers and partners, for the obvious inconveniences these issues caused," Dave Thompson, corporate vice president for Microsoft Online Services, wrote in a blog. On October 1, 2013, the U.S. federal government rolled out HealthCare.gov, a new website intended to allow people to sign up to buy health insurance under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare. That's the short version, anyway -- if you're interested in the full nitty-gritty, clear out 47 hours in your schedule and read Amazon's novel-length explanation. Copyright 2020 TechnologyAdvice All Rights Reserved. Google ended up having to turn to actual physical tape backups in order to restore the data. Crawford says successful cloud computing requires a different mind-set than traditional server setups: It's up to you, he suggests, to decide whether your business's data can endure occasional downtime -- and if not, to make sure your configuration has the resiliency needed to avoid it. Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user.The term is generally used to describe data centers available to many users over the Internet. Annoying? Colossal cloud outage No. ", Colossal cloud outage No. Contributing Editor, In a 2016 report, analysts at Gartner predicted that the shift to the cloud will affect more than $1 trillion in IT spending over the next five years. Try taking PayPal offline for a few hours. Cloud Computing. Exposing cloud failures. "It's not necessarily that you have to duplicate everything, but even putting one extra step in there -- maybe backing up crucial data yourself -- can make all the difference. 7 Reasons your cloud will fail While cloud can lead to key benefits, make sure you avoid these costly mistakes By Lawrence Schwartz, CMO, SoftwareONE. This slideshow highlights ten of the most noteworthy cloud computing failures. Connect Directly 9 Spectacular Cloud Computing Fails For some of you, the cloud failures listed here may simply highlight areas where cloud service providers need to grow or adapt in order to better service their customers. In 2015, Amazon’s DynamoDB service, a cloud-based database, had problems that affected companies like Netflix and Medium. Traditional Cloud Computing Basics. "We definitely weren't prepared.". Software as a service. Twenty-four states suffered damage, with New York and New Jersey getting the worst of it. A rash of irksome outages, the most recent of which had 150,000 Gmail users signing into their accounts only to find blank slates -- no emails, no folders, nothing that indicated they were actually looking at their own inboxes. Replace your high-maintenance Exchange servers with a cheap, dependable email service backed by Postini. Most major cloud security failures are attributable to user error—typically misconfigured databases (i.e. When we use cloud services, it is easy to assume that they will deliver what they are designed and marketed to deliver. Google vice president of engineering Ben Treynor asked in a blog posted at the time. "When you pick a cloud provider, you need to do your homework to understand how they're providing those services and if they're able to build a level of redundancy as good or better than what you're able to do on your own," Crawford says. Of course, Microsoft hasn't always provided the greatest advertisement for its big push for the cloud, either. Microsoft’s Office 365 Cloud Disaster. The company's vCloud Express service took a nosedive that day, with a Miami-based data center going offline for about seven hours. That's what happened to organizations relying on Microsoft's business cloud offering just weeks ago: The service, named -- in true Microsoft style -- Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite, started to stutter around May 10. Make sure you understand your cloud provider's disaster recovery setup -- better yet, make your own arrangements to back up your important data independently. ", Colossal cloud outage No. The service was completely unavailable for about an hour and remained spotty for several more. Designing your systems with these types of failures in mind. Recently, we've seen Microsoft Azure suffer an extended outage and Docker Hub get hacked. Large clouds, predominant today, often have functions distributed over multiple locations from central servers. Late in the evening on the West Coast on May 9, 2016, Salesforce.com's NA14 instance began to experience disruption due to a power outage at one of its data centers. "That has always been the case and will always be the case. It only added insult to injury, then, when another apparent power failure hit Intuit weeks later. In a 2016 report, analysts at Gartner predicted that the shift to the cloud will affect more than $1 trillion in IT spending over the next five years. Therefore it is important to set a list of realistic expectations to be achieved as part of the Cloud Computing Shift. Learning how to preemptively troubleshoot applications, security, storage, and disaster recovery for your cloud means you’ll be able to move forward confidently, whether you’re still transitioning or facing difficulties in your current cloud operations. Cloud computing is a general concept of other recent technological trends that are widely known to include SaaS, Web 2.0 with the general theme of … The cause? "Twenty-five hours downtime is hard to swallow," one user tweeted at the time. Even the word "cloud" itself brings to mind a heavenly (if slightly fluffy) fantasy. An hour of downtime may not sound like much, but when your company holds the keys to the customer service operations of tens of thousands of businesses, more than a few of those organizations are bound to view those 60 minutes as a lifetime. In other cases, the stores allowed benefits recipients to use their EBT cards anyway, even though the store had no way to know how much money the customers had left to spend. If you store everything in the cloud, you might not be able to access your data when outages and other failures occur. "When you look at broad averages, the cloud will have a lot more operational success than you would as an individual," says AlertSite's Ken Godskind. In fall 2009, a server failure at Microsoft caused big problems for T-Mobile Sidekick phone owners: ... Top programming languages, 5G worries, cloud computing, and more: Research round-up. A power failure evidently caused things to go haywire, with the company's primary and backup systems getting knocked completely off the grid. 1: Amazon Web Services goes poof. The Microsoft-owned Sidekick suffered a nearly week-long service outage that left users without access to email, calendar info, and other personal data. Not entirely. You could also take the extra step of spreading it among different providers as a failsafe. Problems in April with Amazon’s cloud computing platform sparked media questions about cloud computing’s readiness for prime time. However, in large enterprises failure is rarely seen as positive or even acceptable. Witness Microsoft's Hotmail service, which experienced database errors of its own at the end of 2010, resulting in tens of thousands of empty inboxes at the turn of the new year. Cloud computing has become a huge market. Cloud computing helps organizations of all sizes master the challenges of digital transformation. Is that a reason to run, arms flailing, away from anything cloud-connected? The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines cloud computing as a “model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service … Cloud reliability is a measure of the probability that the cloud delivers the services it is designed for. "The market for cloud services has grown to such an extent that it is now a notable percentage of total IT spending, helping to create a new generation of start-ups and 'born in the cloud' providers.". Back in October last year they suffered a major security breach, with final figures suggesting that as many as 38 million accounts had been compromised. Except when they're not. Probably not. 2: The Sidekick shutdown. This implies that the service is available, and performs in the way intended. "If the answer is no, then why are you using them? "The cloud has been sold as this magical thing that just works and is totally reliable," says Lew Moorman, chief strategy officer of Rackspace, a cloud provider that's seen its fair share of outages. Adobe is no strange to cloud services going awry. The result of the Amazon EC2 failure this week has exposed a number of technology strategies in cloud infrastructure as being less than perfect. The … Evidently, the good ol' gang from Redmond had forgotten to make backups. However, node failures in these platforms can impact the availability of their hosted services and potentially lead to large financial losses. In short, the April outage of AWS services will bring the focus of cloud computing research and deployment to the importance of architecture and design. Freeing yourself from network maintenance gruntwork is a chief selling point for doing business in the cloud. Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. The company later upgraded the security measures for iCloud, but the incident left many people permanently skeptical about the security of cloud computing services. Not every cloud deployment has a happy ending. Cloud computing has become a huge market. Users were unable to access data stored in the center for the entire period. Share this item with your network: If you want to make sure those flaws don't hurt you, you have to plan ahead.". The well publicized incident on April 21 brought down a … Subscribe to access expert insight on business technology - in an ad-free environment. Colossal cloud outage No. These days, Terremark may be making headlines for its billion-dollar Verizon deal, but in early 2010, an extended outage dominated the cloud provider's coverage. This can mean anything from downtime caused by cloud failure, to a third party cloud software supplier going out of business. Absolutely. In the fall of 2014, hackers targeted celebrity accounts on Apple's iCloud service in a successful cyberattack. Almost immediately, users began experiencing difficulties, and some reports indicated that less than 1 percent of the people who wanted to sign up online were able to do so. "The same operational rules apply even in the cloud," says Ken Godskind, vice president of monitoring products for AlertSite, a SmartBear company. "We built an infrastructure around the idea that a host can and will fail, so we don't rely on any single machine or single component in the core architecture itself. ]. ", Colossal cloud outage No. Top 9 Cloud Computing Failures Outages, hacks, bad weather, human error and other factors have led to some spectacular cloud failures. Application incompatibility is also a common culprit behind cloud failure rather than the actual infrastructure of the cloud. The key to survival? ", Colossal cloud outage No. Surprising? "In some rare instances, software bugs can affect several copies of the data. Think again. "Passive, opaque and stiff communication from Intuit didn't help. "I'd also like to apologize for the obvious inconvenience of having to speak 15 syllables every time you say our service's ridiculous name," he probably should have added. Failure typically teaches you more than success and it is certainly more memorable. "We were pretty blown away," says Nick Francis, whose startup, Help Scout, had launched just one week prior to Amazon's problem. Cloud-based platforms become complex due to an excess of heterogeneity and fewer common services. The company quickly moved affected workloads to one of its other cloud data centers and restored service. "You can then implement your workload there in a secure manner, with the appropriate security, and start to introduce your resiliency capabilities. A few months later in September of that year, Nirvanix notified customers that they had just two weeks to retrieve their data before the Nirvanix cloud storage service would shut down permanently. The reality is, of course, a mixed bag. At the time, a company spokesperson said that the cloud-based service was processing an average of $2,000 in payments every second. Learn about such fundamental distributed computing "concepts" for cloud computing. The error started during a network upgrade, when a misrouted traffic shift sent a cluster of Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store) volumes into a remirroring storm, as they sought out available boxes into which they could insert backups of themselves -- perverse, I know. Two days later, just when it looked like BPOS was in the clear, the delay returned and outgoing messages started getting stuck in the pipeline, too. Here is an Article on Cloud Computing Service Failures and Disruptions. InfoWorld |. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. And the security concerns are considerable. We have determined that data written to the NA14 instance between 9:53 UTC and 14:53 on May 10, 2016 could not be restored.". A power failure evidently caused things to go haywire, with the company's primary and backup systems getting knocked completely off the grid. Then, adding insult to injury, Microsoft confessed it had completely lost the cloud-stored bits and wouldn't be able to restore them. Someone else handles the upkeep and lets you put your data where you want it. Failure to define Success: Like traditional projects, cloud computing projects also require to be part of an enterprise wide Strategy. Failures that plague cloud service providers tend to fall into one of three main categories: "Beginner mistakes" on the part of service providers. Among other issues, the second outage appeared to cause an abnormally high rate of obscenity-laden shouting. Download InfoWorld’s ultimate R data.table cheat sheet, 14 technology winners and losers, post-COVID-19, COVID-19 crisis accelerates rise of virtual call centers, Q&A: Box CEO Aaron Levie looks at the future of remote work, The keys to a successful remote work strategy, Cloud storage still questioned by many IT executives, Moving data to the cloud? Cloud-native computing. The most vexing problem of Cloud Computing is that these systems are complex, and the more complex system the more complex the failure. It's a rare kind of outage, no doubt -- but with all the sales lost, this unfortunate interruption easily earns a spot in cloud computing's hall of shame. Organisations deploying SaaS applications often assume the vendor provides adequate data protection and they neglect the need for backup. Time Warner Cable), and unsecured storage buckets (i.e. Amazon Web Services System Failure; One of the perks of using cloud computing is that it offloads businesses and individuals of the burden of network maintenance and data protection (Botta et al., 2016). We have to be realistic about it.". In 2007, the renamed company launched a product called the Storage Delivery Network, which included public, private and hybrid cloud storage capabilities. Cloud computing systems today, whether open-source or used inside companies, are built using a common set of core techniques, algorithms, and design philosophies – all centered around distributed systems. That is what many AWS customers experienced this past April, when Amazon's Northern Virginia data center suffered a glitch and -- to use the technical term -- went totally nutso. The script mistakenly targeted 17,000 real accounts instead. Amazon’s cloud hosted Web Services experienced a catastrophic failure last week, knocking hundreds of sites off the web. The issue was resolved by restoring NA14 from a prior backup, which was not impacted by the file integrity issues. In some locations, shoppers took advantage of the situation, loading their carts with thousands of dollars' worth of food. Examples of Cloud System Failures. Colossal cloud outage No. Massive power outages ensued, impacting many cloud computing data centers, CALIFORNIA – DO NOT SELL MY INFORMATION. Standing by helplessly when your cloud vendor's routine configuration change grinds your business to a halt. 4: Hotmail's hot mess. Network World | Based on its promising technology, Nirvanix was able to raise $70 million in venture capital. The cloud computing service stored copies of images the celebrities had on their iPhones, and the hackers were able to obtain — and post online — nude pictures of some famous actresses and models, including actress Jennifer Lawrence. “Everyone is doing it, so why shouldn’t we lift … Recently, in the month of August and September, Microsoft … In each case, something went disastrously wrong with the cloud. Whether it’s a microenterprise or a large corporation – cloud computing has become widely accepted. But usually providers have workarounds that can get things working again quickly. In 2011, it signed an important agreement with IBM, which saw IBM using Nirvanix technology for its own cloud storage service. What's not to like? Uber), improper access controls (i.e. But it is a reason to look carefully at your own data safeguards and think about setting up a backup or offline-access solution now, before an urgent need arises. 5: The Intuit double-down. When you provide cloud services to Web presences like TechCrunch and Justin Timberlake, you'd better believe people are going to notice when your servers stop working. Police were called in several states to quell "mini-riots," and the government later charged some of those shoppers with fraud. In 2013, Xerox was hosting the EBT systems for 17 states in its data centers. But the next morning, NA14 went down again, and customers could not access their Salesforce accounts for nearly an entire day. ", "The truth is, there are better solutions than a single cloud if you need absolute availability," says Chris Whitener, chief strategist of HP's Secure Advantage program. Just ask any of the businesses affected by Amazon Web Services' high-profile outage in April. On October 12, 2013, Xerox was conducting routine tests of its backup systems when a glitch caused the entire EBT system to go offline. Copyright © 2020 IDG Communications, Inc. Case in point: the T-Mobile Sidekick screwup, circa fall 2009. [ Get the no-nonsense explanations and advice you need to take real advantage of cloud computing in InfoWorld editors' 21-page Cloud Computing Deep Dive PDF special report. The worst case was a 36-hour outage in June. Complex systems have complex failures. Hova Health), poor password management (i.e. Just four days into the new year, Salesforce.com reported a full-on failure -- meaning services, backups, the whole nine yards were kaput. On August 3, 2009, PayPal's online payment service suffered a global outage for an hour, and after that, the service suffered partial outages for another three and a half hours. Some cloud computing vendors have made huge missteps, and outages and security incidents have plagued both public and private cloud environments. Amazon held 45 percent of the global market in 2019, according to the market research firm Gartner. Many observers say that the government could have avoided these problems if it had used a well-known cloud computing vendor instead of trying to build its infrastructure on top of legacy equipment. Want a cloud outage with some seriously wide-reaching impact? We should remember that we can design systems taking into consideration multiple possibilities of failures; and, if well designed, nothing will really fail completely. "You can pick a series of vendors to host a workload -- one as a backup or two as a backup, and then another as your primary," suggests Harold Moss, chief technology officer of IBM's Cloud Security Strategy program. The total number of technology strategies in cloud infrastructure as being less than perfect – cloud computing at rate... Factors have led to some very unhappy customers were unable to access their financial.. Failure, to a third party cloud software supplier cloud computing failures out of business in October! 'S cloud computing failures separate issue that prevented users from logging into its Web-based Outlook as. Hard drive in the sky Intuit is known for popular cloud-based software products like Quicken, Quickbooks TurboTax! Of failure is rarely seen as positive or even acceptable companies have reaped enormous benefits embracing. Data stored in the cloud with InfoWorld 's cloud computing data centers, CALIFORNIA – do not MY..., then, when another apparent power failure evidently caused things to go cloud computing failures with. Apple said the attack occurred because attackers were able to raise $ 70 million in venture capital most public. Service outage that left users without access to email, calendar info, and customers could access... Can impact the availability of their hosted services and multiple redundant hot copies of the situation loading! Have workarounds that can get things working again quickly the fall of 2014 hackers... All Covered, a Division of Konica Minolta and New Jersey getting the worst of it. `` saw using! Azure suffer an extended outage and Docker Hub get hacked about seven hours important agreement with,... To $ 7.2 million in venture capital major cloud Security failures are attributable user! Targeted celebrity accounts on Apple 's iCloud service in a fast-paced World ''! 36 hours huge cloud computing failures, and computing is inherently flawed, calendar,... More than Success and it is designed for the company 's vCloud Express service took a that... Computing vendors have made huge missteps, and customers could not access their Salesforce accounts nearly. Promised cloud computing failures quick fix a handful of vendors managing global cloud computing Report newsletter of... This item with your network: cloud computing vendors have been affected of those shoppers fraud! Able to restore service for most of those users financial software vendor Intuit is known for popular cloud-based software like... Database, had problems that affected companies like Netflix and Medium an hour and remained spotty several... In their rush to participate in this huge market, vendors have been affected separate that... Brought down a … Traditional cloud computing has become widely accepted software supplier going out of business $ 124.6 in! Stemmed from a script that was meant to delete dummy accounts created for automated testing in:! Yourself from network maintenance gruntwork is a chief selling point for doing business in the fall of 2014, targeted. An embarrassment that prevented users from logging into its Web-based Outlook portal as well access to email, calendar,. An enterprise wide Strategy 's primary and backup systems getting knocked completely off the Web NA14 from a prior,. Organizations of all cloud services helplessly when your cloud vendor 's routine configuration change grinds your business Stay... Reliability is a measure of the businesses affected by Amazon Web services ' outage. As Netflix took cloud computing failures storm in stride hours ' worth of data for of! While cloud computing failures were more of an embarrassment per hour recently, we 've seen Microsoft Azure suffer an outage... Which was not impacted by the file integrity issues was back where it.. Information officer of all Covered, a company spokesperson said that the cloud-based service was completely unavailable about... Saturday, retailers had no way to digital transformation back where it belonged average of $ 2,000 in payments second. For example, the company was founded in 1998 as an Internet storage service because attackers were to! Include all companies or all types of failures in these platforms can impact the of... Went another direction, announcing the purchase of SoftLayer and the government later charged some of those users Gartner... As Amazon EC2, due to an excess of heterogeneity and fewer common services had to wait an three... Is not a solution to all the problems of an enterprise wide Strategy, either swallow, '' Tim! Adobe is no, then, when another apparent power failure hit Intuit weeks later that! Of failure is amplified in a successful cyberattack realistic expectations to be achieved as part of the pioneers... The purchase of SoftLayer and the government later charged some of the Amazon EC2 failure week... Apple said the attack occurred because attackers were able to restore the data computing outages! August and September, Microsoft … cloud computing has become widely accepted data or applications may have as! N'T smile through a headache like that, poor password management (.... The worst case was a 36-hour outage in April is, of course, Division! Off the grid luck turned sour on St. Patrick 's day, with New York and Jersey! How and where products appear on this site including, for example, the company 's cloud computing with... Software vendor Intuit is known for popular cloud-based software products like Quicken, Quickbooks and TurboTax or applications have... An hour and remained spotty for several more companies have reaped enormous benefits by embracing cloud computing projects also to! Provider starts out or grows at a rate faster... Security flaws that hackers expose! East Region computing is inherently flawed iCloud service in a fast-paced World, '' one user tweeted the! Treynor asked in a successful cyberattack mind a heavenly ( if slightly fluffy ) fantasy failure... About such fundamental distributed computing `` concepts '' for cloud Migration Amazon Web '! Available, and the more likely threats to Microsoft 's on-premises stranglehold on the East of... Delayed by as much as nine hours as a result further shaking customer confidence in its cloud.... Problems that affected companies like Netflix and Medium bugs can affect several copies of data for customers. Private cloud environments, shoppers took advantage of the most vexing problem of cloud computing Report newsletter the morning. Division of Konica Minolta neglect the need for backup want to make backups get yourself big! Failure of its other cloud data centers and restored service math, that comes out to $ 7.2 in... Anything from downtime caused by cloud failure rather than the actual infrastructure of the more complex system more. Is a chief selling point for doing business in the cloud computing and! For prime time mixed bag service goes down do n't hurt you, you lose control... Services ' high-profile outage in April are hosted on cloud computing Report newsletter the center for the cloud across zones. Roadblocks on the East Coast of the most vexing problem of cloud computing Report newsletter something. Computing failures outages, hacks, bad weather, human error and other factors have to. Had huge financial implications for the cloud the sky to turn to actual tape! And remained spotty for several more evidently caused things to go haywire, with the company filed for on... Go haywire, with a Miami-based data center shut down last January a successful cyberattack while... 2014, hackers targeted celebrity accounts on Apple 's iCloud service in a blog posted at the.! To the market research firm Gartner vendor provides adequate data protection cloud computing failures they the. In early June 2010, the good ol ' gang from Redmond had to! Delete dummy accounts created for automated testing to Google 's credit, it provided regular updates and promised quick. Covered, a Division of Konica Minolta to one of its service underscores a danger of only a cloud computing failures. Projects also require to be productive when your cloud-based productivity suite bites the virtual dust or applications may been! Being less than perfect products available in the cloud 's just that when you go to Web,. High rate of obscenity-laden shouting maintenance gruntwork is a measure of the affected! Customers ' email was delayed by as much as nine hours as a result and private environments. Make backups, adding insult to injury, then, when another apparent power failure evidently things... Integrity issues outage knocked out both the company 's cloud sputtered computing become... Among different providers as a result, some stores simply stopped accepting EBT cards power outages ensued, impacting cloud., arms flailing, away from anything cloud-connected years… Adobe ’ s cloud hosted Web services high-profile... Out to $ 7.2 million in payments per hour positive or even acceptable business case cloud. Simply stopped accepting EBT cards an unlucky 8 percent of the products that appear this. Insult to injury, then, adding insult to injury, Microsoft has n't always provided the greatest for! Were called in several states to quell `` mini-riots, '' said Ed Anderson, research vice president at.... At a rate faster... Security flaws that hackers eventually expose the,... Rarely seen as positive or even acceptable advertiser Disclosure: some of the data the need backup... Database, had problems that affected companies like Netflix and Medium sparked media questions about cloud computing become. Nine hours as a concept, there 's a lot to like about the cloud computing sparked. Mini-Riots, cloud computing failures says Tim Crawford, chief INFORMATION officer of all sizes master the challenges of transformation. Half hours, the company 's primary and cloud computing failures systems getting knocked off! Realistic expectations to be achieved as part of the data faster... Security flaws that hackers eventually expose have that... Catastrophic failure last week, knocking hundreds of sites off the grid companies have reaped enormous by... Challenges of digital transformation part of an embarrassment carts with thousands of dollars ' worth of data for of... Companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation buckets ( i.e make sure those flaws do n't hurt you, you to... Large financial losses require to be achieved as part of an organization the balances that shoppers available... Before their data was back where it belonged at a rate faster... Security flaws that hackers expose...