Monday, October 12, 2009

Sidekick data loss should never have happened

It was just a coincidence that I posted earlier on cloud computing. I took a long time writing a simple summary of the TechNet and MSDN events I went to on the Azure services. I was (and still am) impressed by the potential of cloud services.

Over the last few days some details are coming out about what happened with T-Mobile’s Sidekick. T-Mobile was using Microsoft’s cloud computing to handle Sidekick data. At some point Microsoft performed a SAN upgrade and outsourced the job to Hitachi. What is completely baffling is that there was no backups taken prior to the upgrade (you can read a better summary at HipTop3.com).

How in the world could Microsoft and/or Hitachi have neglected the backup step?  This should have been caught by the most junior member of the team running the upgrade. It’s going to be interesting to hear how they try to spin this; all parties are equally to blame.

And how does Microsoft try to sell their cloud now?

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