2:01 PM
Microsoft Cloud - Microsoft's current competitor to Google Apps, known as BPOS, suffered a three-hour outage this morning.
During the outage, Microsoft explained via Twitter that the next version of its cloud services for business, Office 365, has been rebuilt from the ground up to be more reliable.
Why did Microsoft have to do this?
Google Apps leader Rajen Sheth has a theory.
Basically, Microsoft has been TALKING about cloud services for the last several years, but a lot of its biggest customers have probably been using hosted servers instead. When it comes to true cloud computing, Microsoft is still getting its footing.
There's a subtle difference here that's important to understand. Microsoft kicked off BPOS in 2007 as a dedicated service. Basically, each customer got Exchange (and other software) running on its own server hardware. Customers would save money by outsourcing IT costs to Microsoft, but the technology was no different than running Exchange on site.
Sheth explains that Gmail and Google Apps were designed and launched more than five years ago as a multitenant solution. That means that that the service itself and underlying data is automatically distributed among thousands of physical machines. Next >
A Googler Explains Why Microsoft's Cloud Services Crashed Today
During the outage, Microsoft explained via Twitter that the next version of its cloud services for business, Office 365, has been rebuilt from the ground up to be more reliable.
Why did Microsoft have to do this?
Google Apps leader Rajen Sheth has a theory.
Basically, Microsoft has been TALKING about cloud services for the last several years, but a lot of its biggest customers have probably been using hosted servers instead. When it comes to true cloud computing, Microsoft is still getting its footing.
There's a subtle difference here that's important to understand. Microsoft kicked off BPOS in 2007 as a dedicated service. Basically, each customer got Exchange (and other software) running on its own server hardware. Customers would save money by outsourcing IT costs to Microsoft, but the technology was no different than running Exchange on site.
Sheth explains that Gmail and Google Apps were designed and launched more than five years ago as a multitenant solution. That means that that the service itself and underlying data is automatically distributed among thousands of physical machines. Next >
