Google explains outage, apologizes

Google has apologized for a service outage that temporarily divorced some 14 percent of its users from the company's smörgåsbord of online services. The cause of it was attributed to a "traffic jam" which came about due to an error in one of Google's systems. The result: Some of Google's web traffic was rerouted to an Asian datacenter not fully equipped to handle the sudden spike in traffic. It culminated in slow or interrupted service for many users.

In a post on the official Google blog, SVP of Operations Urs Hoelzle wrote, "We're very sorry that it happened, and you can be sure that we'll be working even harder to make sure that a similar problem won't happen again." It is not known if the "system error" was due to a human mistake or equipment.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at BBC News

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