
Microsoft says it had Sidekick data backup, but it was hit, too - chuck_taylor
http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2009/10/microsoft_says_had_sidekick_data_backup_but_it_was_hit_too.html?ana=from_rss
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brown9-2
Wish this article had more details than just "the backups were impacted too".

A few months ago Google had a large multi-hour App Engine outage. Afterwards
(within 24 hours?) they posted a detailed technical explanation/postmortem
online for anyone interested to read, with a play-by-play that even went
minute-by-minute.

Microsoft/Danger owe their customers more of a real explanation.

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viraptor
> Will this prompt Microsoft to review its policy for data backups? "This was
> an extraordinary situation [...]. We greatly apologize [...]. We have a full
> team working in parallel with the restoration team to augment the redundancy
> and stability of this acquired service over the long-term."

That's got to be the best non-answer answer I've read in a long time. And no -
redundancy and stability _of the service_ have nothing to do with the backup
policy.

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dlsspy
You forgot "acquired."

It was _them_. Those bastards we bought. I mean, sure that was almost a year
ago, and most of the original employees are gone, but do keep in mind when
we're talking about this that it's not a proper MS offering.

Unless you like it. Then yay us.

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InclinedPlane
Wrong, wrong, wrong. If you have a backup that CAN be impacted by a problem in
the main server then you do not have a backup at all, you have, at best,
redundancy.

The very reason to have a legitimate backup is that it cannot be damaged by
the same mechanisms that can damage your primary data. It should be inert, if
possible, or at least to some extent immutable, and it should be offsite.

RAID is not a backup. SAN is not a backup. Mirroring to a redundant storage
array is also not a true backup.

Backups are hard to get right, and expensive. But the cost of getting it wrong
can be monumental.

~~~
andrewvc
I couldn't agree more. Real backups mean that at some level you can't delete
that data, no matter how much you want to, without driving out to some secure
remote location and demagnetizing some tapes.

~~~
furyg3
_Real backups mean that at some level you can't delete that data_

It goes even farther than that:

Real backups mean that at some level you can _recover_ that data

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makecheck
In my experience, new "policies" put in place in these situations don't really
do anything. They just inject bureaucrats where there were none before, and
aggravate the few people remaining who might really help. And you can bet
managers will start a witch hunt, firing some mostly-competent guy as a
scapegoat (which may "feel good" at the time, but ironically will only slow
down their recovery and set them up for their next failure).

The smart thing would be for Microsoft to think of the employees: what
management decision is likely to make working in that group _least likely to
suck_ over the next few months? If it were me, I would invest in technology
and hires/transfers, not in bureaucracy. I would give that group _everything
it needs_ to build and rebuild that system twice. After all, doesn't Microsoft
have the money for that?

~~~
dtf
Actually I think the question on many people's lips is not whether whether
some "mostly competent guy" will be scapegoated, but whether VP of Mobile
Experiences Roz Ho will manage to keep her job. First we had the leaked
details of the dire status of Microsoft's Pink project, and now this. Sure
wouldn't like to be in her shoes right now.

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jws
You see teacher, I have two dogs...

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jsz0
While this is very unfortunate for SideKick users I suddenly feel pretty good
about my own backup solution. Redundancy, rsync weekly to a live volume,
multiple offline backups including one off-site (although it's a few months
out of date right now. The important data exists on at least half a dozen
sources at any given time. I am of course referring to my personal MP3
collection.

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chanux
Reminds me of something happend to a friend.

Friend: Sir, my hard disk partition crashed and the project files are all
gone.

Lecturer: Don't you have a back up?

Friend: The backup was on the same partition.

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jacquesm
I find it almost unbelievable that there were no cyclic backups.

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10ren
This highlights a very reasonable fear that people and corporations have about
the cloud.

It might even kill off some of the smaller cloud-based players...

