Tuesday 13 October 2009
Cloud fail? Get outa here...
So I thought I'd post my views on the Tmobile/Danger outage along with the massive amount of views that have been plastered all over the world of twitter and large volumes of cloud bloggers. I wont go into technical detail on the outage, I'll be going philosophical on the whole thing.
First question being asked is was it the Cloud that failed? First things first, I (and many others) have mainly been pissed off with the fact that a vast array of short sighted people and reporters have quoted this as being a "Cloud" failure, I wont go into definition of Cloud as I've got many posts that provide this (and still continue to do so as Cloud Evolves), but what I will say is that this outage was by all means not a Cloud issue. Yes I repeat it was not Cloud issue....the issue was a managed service issue, a service that was being managed by Danger that T-Mobile outsourced to Danger, and Danger were obliged contractually by Tmobile to provide relevant services. Turn the clock back 5 Years and this outage would have been described as just that... an Outsourcing failure. Its important to state that the delivery method of the Cloud didnt fail to end users (the internet)....the Cloud Computing/storage strategy didnt fail (hardware did)...the crux is the managed service companies obligation and duty of care to operate it successfully failed.
Now flick to the other side of the coin....Danger were paid to provide a service and software to Tmobile, that payment was probably bare minimal cost base and tightly screwed down on overall price with absolute zero investment in any extended expensive SLAs with them, and obviously as Tmobile is the only operater with egg on there face here they were the only Operator to use Danger services and thus most likely the primary source for Infrastructure Investment fund for avoiding such outages, as anyone in business knows a single large customer is never enough SO before your eyes is a complete vicious circle of why this thing was doomed to fail...Two companies hedging bets basically on a business model supported by shoestring Infrastructure services and trying to reap every reward going financially.
The Cloud is not to blame, it is greed.....
"Everything happens for a reason"
Now that rant is over I provide reflection on why I think this outage was a good thing.
Sadly with the evolutional theory of natural selection this little chick of MS Danger had to fail to make the current leaders in the Cloud industry stronger and more capable. And with this outage I wonder how many of these Cloud/Managed Service providers reviewed backup and continuity strategy this week ;). Think of it as a lesson learnt, a lesson unfortunately learnt by Tmobile whom I am sure will settle in court and make lost revenue back and the consumer whom will also gain recompence.
And this lesson is one that can be taken on board by every aspect in the dark world of IT services and outsourcing, this goes from the bare basics of the Outsourcing of IT Services model where "Your mess for less" mentality is strive through to the bleeding edge side of IT within the Cloud world of services such as Amazon EC2 and many other cutting edge suppliers that are still yet to break the adoption curve into mainstream due to less high profile outages.
Additionally on this Mr Vinternals provided an excellent view point where he highlighted that example issues can additionally be used for you and I who most likely struggle to educate management on the phrase "you get what you pay for", and I add to this that the lack of visability on what your purchases and using for services no matter how good or reputable a service provider is should never be taken for granted. An example of this is the other high profile outage this week of a very reputable airline's primary reservation system which was being hosted in a managed service datacentre run by THE biggest and apparently most reputable managed service provider....Unfortunately I can't probably use the Phrase "You get what you pay for on this one" for services not granted but this guy really really made my day when I read this
Over and out...
First question being asked is was it the Cloud that failed? First things first, I (and many others) have mainly been pissed off with the fact that a vast array of short sighted people and reporters have quoted this as being a "Cloud" failure, I wont go into definition of Cloud as I've got many posts that provide this (and still continue to do so as Cloud Evolves), but what I will say is that this outage was by all means not a Cloud issue. Yes I repeat it was not Cloud issue....the issue was a managed service issue, a service that was being managed by Danger that T-Mobile outsourced to Danger, and Danger were obliged contractually by Tmobile to provide relevant services. Turn the clock back 5 Years and this outage would have been described as just that... an Outsourcing failure. Its important to state that the delivery method of the Cloud didnt fail to end users (the internet)....the Cloud Computing/storage strategy didnt fail (hardware did)...the crux is the managed service companies obligation and duty of care to operate it successfully failed.
Now flick to the other side of the coin....Danger were paid to provide a service and software to Tmobile, that payment was probably bare minimal cost base and tightly screwed down on overall price with absolute zero investment in any extended expensive SLAs with them, and obviously as Tmobile is the only operater with egg on there face here they were the only Operator to use Danger services and thus most likely the primary source for Infrastructure Investment fund for avoiding such outages, as anyone in business knows a single large customer is never enough SO before your eyes is a complete vicious circle of why this thing was doomed to fail...Two companies hedging bets basically on a business model supported by shoestring Infrastructure services and trying to reap every reward going financially.
The Cloud is not to blame, it is greed.....
"Everything happens for a reason"
Now that rant is over I provide reflection on why I think this outage was a good thing.
Sadly with the evolutional theory of natural selection this little chick of MS Danger had to fail to make the current leaders in the Cloud industry stronger and more capable. And with this outage I wonder how many of these Cloud/Managed Service providers reviewed backup and continuity strategy this week ;). Think of it as a lesson learnt, a lesson unfortunately learnt by Tmobile whom I am sure will settle in court and make lost revenue back and the consumer whom will also gain recompence.
And this lesson is one that can be taken on board by every aspect in the dark world of IT services and outsourcing, this goes from the bare basics of the Outsourcing of IT Services model where "Your mess for less" mentality is strive through to the bleeding edge side of IT within the Cloud world of services such as Amazon EC2 and many other cutting edge suppliers that are still yet to break the adoption curve into mainstream due to less high profile outages.
Additionally on this Mr Vinternals provided an excellent view point where he highlighted that example issues can additionally be used for you and I who most likely struggle to educate management on the phrase "you get what you pay for", and I add to this that the lack of visability on what your purchases and using for services no matter how good or reputable a service provider is should never be taken for granted. An example of this is the other high profile outage this week of a very reputable airline's primary reservation system which was being hosted in a managed service datacentre run by THE biggest and apparently most reputable managed service provider....Unfortunately I can't probably use the Phrase "You get what you pay for on this one" for services not granted but this guy really really made my day when I read this
Over and out...
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