Failure in T-Mobile servers calls cloud computing into question

Derek Brush (lordbean) Cloud servers for T-Mobile's Sidekick communicator have experienced massive failures; thousands of customers have permanently lost data.

October 10, 2009 8:57 PM ET in News, ,

t-mobile_logoServer problems at Danger, a Microsoft subsidiary, have caused T-Mobile Sidekick cloud services to be unavailable for several days, and now it seems users may not get their data back at all.

Affected data includes calendars, personal data, to-do lists, and contact lists. Any Sidekick users who have not backed their data up locally should begin rebuilding their data manually. T-Mobile has already issued a public apology for the situation, but the incident will more than likely hurt the firm financially, and it also calls the general feasibility of cloud computing into question.

T-Mobile has also recommended that Sidekick users do not power their device off, remove the battery, or allow the battery to fully drain. Any data stored locally on the Sidekick device will be permanently lost if the device loses power.

T-Mobile intends to release an update on the status of their repair attempt on Monday, October 12.

6 Comments:

  1. MachineDog
    11 Oct '09, 1:34 am

    So, they didn't backup the cloud's data? What?

  2. Gnome Queen
    11 Oct '09, 3:54 am

    Do we know if any other phones are affected by the same issue? Because I was thinking about getting a G1 with T-Mobile, but I don't want this stuff to happen to me.

  3. Thrax
    11 Oct '09, 4:02 am

    Nothing uses this but the Sidekick.

  4. ardichoke
    11 Oct '09, 8:56 pm

    This, ladies and gentlemen, is what happens when you fail to have a cohesive disaster recovery plan.

  5. Jeremiah Staes
    12 Oct '09, 5:56 am

    I don't think this is a failure of cloud computing, but a failure of implementation. What dumb gourd doesn't back up their stuff? This seems more like bad architecture than anything.

    As a user of lots of cloud services that do some decently heavy lifting, they're way more reliable than even the big-iron corporate stuff I've worked on. However, it's new, so it's going to be kicked at every opportunity.

  6. AlexDeGruven
    12 Oct '09, 12:48 pm
    Quoting Jeremiah Staes

    I don't think this is a failure of cloud computing, but a failure of implementation. What dumb gourd doesn't back up their stuff? This seems more like bad architecture than anything.

    As a user of lots of cloud services that do some decently heavy lifting, they're way more reliable than even the big-iron corporate stuff I've worked on. However, it's new, so it's going to be kicked at every opportunity.

    This is the truth. Having data ONLY in the cloud is only one copy. Since data is only stored on the device as long as it has power, that doesn't actually count as a copy.

    This is a boneheaded implementation. If you're going to have the cloud as the only authoritative source of the data, then you have to have some way for the user to keep a local copy. Addressbook and calendar data do not take up that much space. Having 1GB of internal flash storage dedicated to what essentially amounts to a PIM data backup would be trivial.

    T-Mo really dropped the ball on this one, and it's unfortunate that cloud computing is going to take some of the fall for it.

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