|
Various Google-related sites were hit by slowdowns and outages due to a situation the company likened to a congested airport runway.
Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) issued a brief explanation of the problems that affected some users worldwide.
Various reports from around the globe indicated users had trouble with Google’s search page and its applications, including the Gmail e-mail service. In some cases, the services couldn’t be accessed, while in others, response time was minutes instead of the fractions of a second Google is famous for.
Google said an error in one of its systems caused it to direct some Web traffic through Asia, creating a traffic jam. As a result, Google said about 14 percent of its users experienced slow services or even interruptions.
In a blog post, Urs Hölzle, Google’s senior vice president for operations, compared the problems to a delay with an airline flight:
“Imagine if you were trying to fly from New York to San Francisco, but your plane was routed through an airport in Asia. And a bunch of other planes were sent that way too, so your flight was backed up and your journey took much longer than expected. That’s basically what happened to some of our users today for about an hour, starting at 7:48 am Pacific time.”
Web site performance monitoring firm Gomez said the slowdown had a ripple affect beyond Google’s applications.
For example, the firm, which routinely monitors and benchmarks the performance of leading Web sites, found that retailer Target’s Web site delivered a lengthy 81-second response time throughout this morning as a result of the Google outage.
While he didn’t know the specifics of what Target and other affected sites were running, Gomez CTO Imad Mouline said Web sites typically have to wait for JavaScript code used by Google Analytics and other applications to fully load ahead of other services.
“In most cases, the browser only loads one piece at a time, and nothing else until the JavaScript loads,” Mouline told InternetNews.com. “For most browsers, a piece of content such as a JavaScript only takes a few hundred milliseconds, but when that number goes up, it impacts the site.”
Google has had other service issues with its online apps, including one in March caused by a programming bug in its online Google Docs service. That glitch affected a much smaller subset of users than today’s snafu.
Speed has been a hallmark of Google’s search engine, which typically provides results in milliseconds. The company even strives to mitigate slower Web access to get users results as quickly as possible.
“Even if the Web is too slow, it’s our problem,” Udi Manber, Google’s vice president of engineering, said earlier this week at the company’s Searchology event.
The Google blog post concluded that “…it’s especially embarrassing when a glitch like this one happens. We’re very sorry that it happened, and you can be sure that we’ll be working even harder to make sure that a similar problem won’t happen again. All planes are back on schedule now.”
Update adds comments from Google and Gomez.
Article courtesy of InternetNews.com.
Huawei’s AI Update: Things Are Moving Faster Than We Think
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
December 04, 2020
Keeping Machine Learning Algorithms Honest in the ‘Ethics-First’ Era
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 18, 2020
Key Trends in Chatbots and RPA
FEATURE | By Guest Author,
November 10, 2020
FEATURE | By Samuel Greengard,
November 05, 2020
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 02, 2020
How Intel’s Work With Autonomous Cars Could Redefine General Purpose AI
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 29, 2020
Dell Technologies World: Weaving Together Human And Machine Interaction For AI And Robotics
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 23, 2020
The Super Moderator, or How IBM Project Debater Could Save Social Media
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
October 16, 2020
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
October 07, 2020
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
October 05, 2020
CIOs Discuss the Promise of AI and Data Science
FEATURE | By Guest Author,
September 25, 2020
Microsoft Is Building An AI Product That Could Predict The Future
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 25, 2020
Top 10 Machine Learning Companies 2020
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
September 22, 2020
NVIDIA and ARM: Massively Changing The AI Landscape
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
September 18, 2020
Continuous Intelligence: Expert Discussion [Video and Podcast]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 14, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Governance and Ethics [Video]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 13, 2020
IBM Watson At The US Open: Showcasing The Power Of A Mature Enterprise-Class AI
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 11, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Perception vs. Reality
FEATURE | By James Maguire,
September 09, 2020
Anticipating The Coming Wave Of AI Enhanced PCs
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 05, 2020
The Critical Nature Of IBM’s NLP (Natural Language Processing) Effort
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
August 14, 2020
Datamation is the leading industry resource for B2B data professionals and technology buyers. Datamation's focus is on providing insight into the latest trends and innovation in AI, data security, big data, and more, along with in-depth product recommendations and comparisons. More than 1.7M users gain insight and guidance from Datamation every year.
Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on Datamation and our other data and technology-focused platforms.
Advertise with Us
Property of TechnologyAdvice.
© 2025 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved
Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this
site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives
compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products
appear on this site including, for example, the order in which
they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies
or all types of products available in the marketplace.