Why Gmail Went Down Today (GOOG)

Image via CrunchBase

Dan Frommer

Google has explained why its Gmail Web mail service went down today. In short, they took a few Gmail servers down for routine maintenance. But its "request routers" -- servers that direct traffic to Gmail servers -- couldn't handle the rest of the load. (Ironically, because of recent changes designed to make the systems more reliable.) And everything stacked up until it crashed.

Not great that Gmail was down, but good that Google is so open about the problem and parts of its solution. We doubt it lost much serious business today. (Especially because the email servers were up the whole time; just Gmail's Web interface wasn't. If actual mail were lost, that'd be a different story.)

Why Gmail Went Down Today (GOOG)

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