In the wake of service outages earlier this week, Google is making good on a commitment to increase transparency and communication with Google Apps customers.
On Wednesday, Google launched the Google Apps Status Dashboard. As its name suggests, the new tool lets customers check the status of services such as Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs, Google Sites, and Google Video for business.
“The Google Apps Status Dashboard represents an additional layer of transparency that we believe will be particularly useful for our business users, and it’s also relevant to users of our consumer products,” said Tessa Prescott of the Google Apps sales team. “The status dashboard is the best place to check for information on service availability for Google Apps anywhere in the world.”
A Timely Launch
The launch of the dashboard is timely. Google received a one-two punch earlier this week when a data-center malfunction caused Gmail to go down for hours in conjunction with routine maintenance at a European site.
Google explained that Gmail accounts are typically served out of another data center during maintenance, but some coding issues caused an overload that cascaded from one data center to another for about an hour before Google engineers corrected the issue.
While Google was scrambling to fix the problem, attackers launched phishing campaigns in the Google Talk chat service. When users clicked a link to “check out” a video, they were sent to a site called ViddyHo and asked for their Gmail username and password. Users who anted up the information set off a chain reaction that sent a similar message to their online contacts. Google has blacklisted the site and blocked the link.
Does the Dashboard Matter?
With this week’s drama behind it, Google appears to have moved quickly to make good on its promise of transparency. Greg Sterling, principal analyst at…