How Google handled the latest Gmail crash

Google treats its top business customers with kid gloves, and that's one reason that the Gmail outage last week did not spark protest or outrage.

Although tens of thousands of Gmail customers couldn't access their Gmail accounts for nearly two hours on Sept. 1, Google made sure its top customers knew what was happening. Google personnel made calls to these top businesses when things got back to normal--telling them what happened and how it was fixed, according to an article in InformationWeek.com.

Google offers its large business customers one-on-one "post-mortem calls" after an outage. Any Gmail user can check the company's APPs Status Dashboard website and paying customers get around-the-clock support.

In fact, business customers sign Google agreements which guarantee nearly 100 percent service per month. Under the terms of the contract, Gmail can be down for 43 minutes a month, and if it exceeds that, free days are added to a business contract.

Google has built in a few "what ifs" to its service contracts. It's a good thing, too, because it also had outages in February and May. Customers have to be assured that these are tiny blips in a very big picture.

For more on how Google handled the Gmail outage:
- check out this InformationWeek.com article

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