37Signals is back from outage
Okay so Basecamp and all other good stuff from 37Signals is back. They’ve been down for 2 hours.
Though I don’t have any meaningful comments on the load balancer failure at RackSpace being the main source of the problem and on the fact RackSpace had another outage 2 months ago, I would still like to bring some points.
First, it’s amazing how responsible and professional guys at 37Signals. 3 minutes into the outage they posted their first message on a temporary System Status page, and later posted about a dozen updates until everything has been fixed in 2 hours. They really possess that good habit of honestly informing customers about each and every glitch.
This shows how much 37Signals care about their customers. And remember — Basecamp monthly fee starts at just $12. I have dealt with a hosting provider that once had a nearly 24-hours outage while we paid them $250 each month. And their communication style was not even close to Basecamp guys. In fact they only admit a problem after we have reported it to them.
Now second, guess what happened after I logged in to Basecamp after the outage. Right, they posted a downtime notice explaining the outage once again.
Think about it. Everyone who tried to access Basecamp during the outage would have seen the system status page and have read there’s been a problem so they don’t really expect yet another outage note. Everyone who logged in after 12PM doesn’t know a thing so no message is needed to inform them about an outage they missed. But 37Signals guys still followed their best practices and posted this notice admitting the problem and saying sorry once again.
Thanks 37Signals!
