Google once again has run into problems with their Gmail and Apps accounts when the system went down on Wednesday for some 15 hours.  People trying to access their accounts were receiving ‘502 Server Error’ messages when they tried to log onto the servers. The unfortunate incident left many complaining on the lack of service and also how long it took Google to correct the problem. In an article it stated:

Google first acknowledged the problem in the official discussion forums for Gmail and Google Apps shortly after 2 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time on Wednesday and declared the problem solved at almost 5 a.m. on Thursday.

A Google official posting status updates on the Apps forum wrote that the problem affected “a small subset” of Apps users, without being more specific.

More than 500,000 businesses and universities with about 10 million active users have signed up for the free and fee-based versions of Google Apps.

The problem, which also affected stand-alone users of Gmail, made it impossible for users to log in to their accounts. They got a “502 Server Error” message when they tried to log in.

 Over in the Google forum some comments were made for the lack of service that were less than flattering towards Google. Which brings up a question that all of us might want to ask ourselves. Can we afford to be with a service that is not 100% reliable 24 x 7 without interruption?

Comments welcome.

Source.