Many Google services went down, today. At first Google didn't say anything thing. Then it came out that Google was investigating the problem. Finally the debacle was over around 2:20 ET.
Well, when the big guys fall they fall far and wide. According to Google Apps page there was service disruption for the following:
- Gmail
- Google Calendar
- Google Talk
- Google Drive
- Google Docs
- Google Sheets
- Google Slides
- Google Drawings
- Google Sites
- Google Groups
- Google+ Hangouts
- Google Voice
We can image students with Chrome Books who couldn't turn in assignments because Google Docs went down. We hope to God that people were not trying to make emergency phone calls with Google Voice. If you were relying on Google Voice for your business phone messages, you could be in trouble.
Business that pay for Google apps and Google Apps for Education can request a service credit which amounts to extra days of service.
The problem with relying on free services for your business is that you can't complain or get anything when they don't work.
Google Sites Premier is used by businesses and if you were wondering why business was kind of the slow... The whole she-bang went down.
It would be interesting to find out what the cause was if it was an internal error or a great big hack from outside the organization. If you have any complaints or gripes about what happened to you and yours, please leave it in comments below.