
The year 2014 experienced some major outages. Some caused by natural disasters such as storms or fire. Others triggered by human interference. The cases are not new and neither are the effects: Whenever it happens, it produces pain for customers and companies in this highly interconnected world.
Here is our compilation of the worst outages of 2014. What influences did outages and downtimes have in 2014? What can we learn from this list, where can we find patterns? How can we avoid these problems in the future?
- The Year starts with a drop for dropbox
Fresh into 2014, Dropbox, the popular cloud-data-service, experiences a complete outage, leaving many users frustrated. The website is down and data-sharing and syncing is impossible for all subscribers. Dropbox quickly claims that the outage is due to an internal maintenance error, not to an outside attack as rumors say. While the main page is back online within two hours, it still takes two full days to completely recover from this system failure. Not a month later, Dropbox experiences another outage that can be resolved in less than an hour. Interesting enough, dropbox was also among the first cloud outages in 2013. - Playing the market is risky – even more so digitally
Still early in January, both the website and the mobile trading platform of E*Trade, an online brokerage firm, are inaccessible for several hours. This happens shortly ahead of the release of the minutes from the most recent Federal Reserve meeting. What adds to the frustration and uncertainty of users is the lack of communication by E*Trade itself regarding the cause of this incident. - When Google is down, the world notices
By the end of January Google follows suit to Dropbox and experiences an outage of several of its services. While Google recovers within an hour, the users notice quickly. According to Google the culprit is an internal software bug causing the systems to ignore user’s data requests. The company acknowledges that it might not have had the necessary monitoring mechanisms in place and promises to improve its availability. Not even two months later, some of Googles’s services are offline yet again, this time for more than 3 hours and again due to wrong maintenance. - Switched off
In April the failure of a switch in a Sydney based data centre leads to an outage of almost the entire banking network of Australia’s Commonwealth Bank. While this leaves many people without access to their funds it also affects a number of businesses and government organisations. - While TV becomes smarter it is still vulnerable to natural disaster
When a fire breaks out at a Samsung Facility in South Korea in April, the effects spill across the techworld. Samsung’s website is down and its devices from handhelds to SmartTV experience extended outages. The problems range from error messages to no access to apps. The incident lasts for four and a half hours with people complaining about it via social media. Samsung apologizes for the incident and promises further investigations into the widespread effects. - Adobe learns the hard way that no cloud is too big to crash
The world of video and photo editors is left in a state of frustration in May when Adobe’s Creative Cloud is no longer accessible. A 27 hour long outage of the single point of access to Adobe’s software products leaves professionals unable to work. Again, it’s a maintenance failure that leads to the dismay. Adobe apologizes and puts new measures in place to prevent similar events. - Microsoft’s missing Lync
In late June, Microsoft experiences a problem with both Lync, its online communication service as well as its Cloud Service Office365. The problem leaves mainly North American customers without access to their accounts and connection problems. Lasting a full 9 hours during the main business times of the day, the outage affects a large number of professional users. Many complain about the lack of service from Microsoft’s side. As it turns out, the disruptions were caused by a unique breakdown coupled with a previously unknown flaw in the Exchange Online Server. - Try paying your bills, when the system is down
Close to the end of June widespread outages leave Verizon customers aggravated. While the failure doesn’t affect the network itself, online bill payments, and the carrier’s upgrade/activation system are inaccessible for several days. According to #VerizonOutage it isn’t the only outage Verizon has to cope with in 2014. - When a movie announcement spins out of control
Whether Sony was aware of the turmoil it would create with “The Interview” – its satirical Movie about the assassination of Kim-Jong Un, North Korea’s Head of State – will remain a mystery. But the outages that follow the cyber attack on its network in November are more than real, leaving its staff working with cellphones, gmail accounts and notepads. Incidents like this might occur more often in coming years – all the reason to include the possibility into your Business Continuity Plan. - Computer failure keeps London’s skies clear
The National Air Traffic Services (NATS) is Britain’s main flight control, directing national air traffic. When a technical fault affects the flight data system at its Swanwick centre in mid December, everything is put on hold. All London airspace is closed to incoming and departing traffic for just under an hour. While Heathrow counts 84 flight cancellations and major delays, other UK airports report knock-on effects.
Last but not least (never go out without a smile):
Quick! Doubleclick ad server is down. Time to look at all the internet. It’s free!
— dave epstein (@epstein) 12. November 2014
Related Sources
- Computerworlduk.com: The worst cloud outages of 2014 (so far)
- Infoworld.com: The worst cloud outages of 2014 (so far)
- CRN.Com: The 10 Biggest Cloud Outages Of 2014 (So Far)


