Oct 10
T-Mobile and the SideKick's Cloudy Disaster
By William Levins
T-Mobile and Danger, the Microsoft-owned subsidiary that makes the Sidekick, suffered server issues and lost all user data. No backup, no disaster recovery. Just a letter informing you you're screwed. How nice.
Reports indicate a botched Storage Area Network (SAN) upgrade caused the loss of data. But the true crime is that Danger, Microsoft, and/or T-Mobile failed to safeguard their user's data. How could a "cloud-based" service operate without disaster recovery procedures? And why was no backup made before the SAN upgrade was attempted.
In today's world, it's unimaginable and unforgivable that this could happen. Especially since, from what I've read, the Sidekick stores all its data in the "cloud"....well they did. Now it's gone. I imagine three groups are very busy at these companies this weekend: the IT guys, the PR teams, and the lawyers.
