MS i Sidekick - vaši podaci su nestali, hvala na pitanju

Users of T-Mobile's Sidekick have been suffering through a major outage over the past several days that left many without access to the Web or their address books.
Microsoft, whose Danger subsidiary powers the Sidekick service, said it is "working urgently" to deal with the problems, which interrupted data service for most Sidekick users starting at 1:30 a.m. PDT on Friday. The level of disruption has varied, though most users have been affected, Microsoft said.
"We are working around-the-clock to get all our services back online and will continue to post status updates to our valued customers as issues are resolved," Microsoft said. "We thank our customers for their patience and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this disruption has caused."
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET
Microsoft said that, as of 6 a.m. PDT Tuesday, it had restored service "for critical applications including address book and calendar, social media applications, IM, web browsing, media player and camera."
"Our goal is to have all services restored to 100 percent functionality by Thursday; however there may be some exceptions," Microsoft said. The software maker bought Danger last year.
T-Mobile offered an updated statement on Tuesday, apologizing for the outage and saying it would credit users for one month's service because of the interruption.
T-Mobile's Sidekick forums are filled with comments from users expressing their frustration over the issue.
Among those affected was Ariel Barco, who said he noticed his service out on Friday night and got his service restored last night. But not all of his friends have been so lucky, he said.
"Many of my friends have Sidekicks and one in particular is still waiting for her address book to be restored as we speak," Barco said.
He said the outage was frustrating since it limited the ability to access social networks and the Internet, which made it hard to plan for the weekend. Plus, Barco said, T-Mobile didn't do a good job of communicating what was going on. "The issue was not communicated to the user base," Barco said. "I found out about the outage on Saturday after checking blogs and T-Mobile forums and T-Mobile's Twitter. I also checked with acquaintances with Sidekicks."

T-Mobile: we probably lost all your Sidekick data
by Chris Ziegler posted Oct 10th 2009 at 3:45PM


Well, this is shaping up to be one of the biggest disasters in the history of cloud computing, and certainly the largest blow to Danger and the Sidekick platform: T-Mobile's now reporting that personal data stored on Sidekicks has "almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger." They're still looking for a way to recover it, but they're not giving users a lot of hope -- meanwhile, servers are still on the fritz and customers are being advised not to let their devices power down because anything that's still on there will be lost the next time the device is turned on. Another communique is promised from T-Mobile on Monday to give everyone a status update on the recovery efforts, but at this point, it's not looking good at all.

Update: Apparently T-Mobile has paused the sale of new Sidekicks, as all models are now listed as "temporarily out of stock" on the company's site. Additionally, a warning as been added to the post on T-Mobile's forum which reads: "Sidekick customers, during this service disruption, please DO NOT remove your battery, reset your Sidekick, or allow it to lose power." Scary stuff, Sidekickers.

Missing Sidekick data may be gone for good
by Matt Hickey

Most of them don't look like this today.
(Credit: CNET
It looks as though the current Sidekick outage is turning into a bigger mess for T-Mobile. The company has just published an apology to Sidekick users who've been without many important services for a few days--and says that because of a server error at Danger (a Microsoft subsidiary), affected users might not get their data back at all.
This is terrible news for some Sidekick users out there and is also one of the largest fails in cloud computing in recent memory. T-Mobile has already offered affected users a free month of service, but that was a few days ago when it seemed the problem was on its way to being resolved. Now, some users are looking at not having their data restored at all. Those whose data hasn't already been recovered will likely have to rebuild their contact lists, calendars, to-dos, and other personal content themselves.
The problem is that many users didn't back up that data. A friend of mine never backed up her Sidekick LX because Danger's server-side infrastructure made it redundant--or so she thought.
T-Mobile says they'll issue another update on Monday, October 12, which will communicate the current status of the repair.
One important point T-Mobile is communicating to affected users is not to power off your device. On its Web site, T-Mobile warns, "We continue to advise customers to NOT reset their device by removing the battery or letting their battery drain completely, as any personal content that currently resides on your device will be lost." Good luck on Monday.

Sidekick outage casts cloud over Microsoft
by Ina Fried


The massive data failure at Microsoft's Danger subsidiary threatens to put a dark cloud over the company's broader "software plus services" strategy.
A key tenet of that approach is that businesses and consumers can trust Microsoft to reliably store valuable data on their servers.

T-Mobile Sidekick Slide
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET
A week ago, though, Microsoft's Danger unit experienced a huge outage that left many T-Mobile Sidekick users without access to their calendar, address book, and other key data. That's because the Sidekick keeps nearly all its data in the cloud as opposed to keeping the primary copy on the devices themselves.
Things got even worse on Saturday, as Microsoft said in a statement that data not recovered thus far may be permanently lost. It's not immediately clear how many people lost their data. The outage earlier in the week affected a broad swath of Sidekick users, though many had data return during the week.
While outages in the cloud computing world are common (one need only look at recent issues with Twitter or Gmail), data losses are another story. And this one stands as one of the more stunning ones in recent memory.
The Danger outage comes just a month before Microsoft is expected to launch its operating system in the cloud--Windows Azure. That announcement is expected at November's Professional Developer Conference. One of the characteristics of Azure is that programs written for it can be run only via Microsoft's data centers and not on a company's own servers.
It should be pointed out that the Azure setup is entirely different from what Danger uses: the Sidekick uses an architecture Microsoft inherited rather than built (Microsoft bought Danger last year). Still, the failure would seem to be enough to give any CIO pause.
Update, 2 p.m. PT, 10/11/2009: I asked Microsoft for comment Saturday when I was writing this, in particular as to how the rest of its cloud might differ from the Danger set up.
Microsoft said Sunday that its the fabric controller that manages the Azure service is built with redundancy in mind.
"We write multiple replicas of user data to multiple devices so that the data is available in a situation where a single or multiple physical nodes may fail," Windows Azure general manager Doug Hauger said in a statement to CNET News.
That doesn't mean Azure is immune from data loss, though I'm told an entire data center would have to be wiped out, as opposed to just a server or collection of servers. I'd be interested to know whether Microsoft will also offer multiple location options so that users that want to can have their data in more than one physical spot as well.
But that's just one of many questions raised by this spectacular failure. Among the other questions still looming large in my head are:
1. What backup procedures did Danger have?
2. Just how many of T-mobile's Sidekick customers lost their data? (Feel free to let me know, Sidekick users.)
3. What impact will this have on the Pink project, which was largely seen as the evolution of the Sidekick, and some say was already in trouble?
4. Will this hurt Microsoft's efforts to build a brand around the notion of Windows Phone even though that uses a different architecture (with its own challenges, to be sure)?

Microsoft said Sunday that its the fabric controller that manages the Azure service is built with redundancy in mind.
"We write multiple replicas of user data to multiple devices so that the data is available in a situation where a single or multiple physical nodes may fail," Windows Azure general manager Doug Hauger said in a statement to CNET News.

Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device – such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos – that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger. That said, our teams continue to work around-the-clock in hopes of discovering some way to recover this information. However, the likelihood of a successful outcome is extremely low. As such, we wanted to share this news with you and offer some tips and suggestions to help you rebuild your personal content. You can find these tips at the T-Mobile Sidekick Forums (http://www.t-mobile.com/sidekick ). We encourage you to visit the Forums on a regular basis to access the latest updates as well as FAQs regarding this service disruption.

Sidekick customers, during this service disruption, please DO NOT remove your battery, reset your Sidekick, or allow it to lose power.

Uvek mi je bila glupava ta koncepcija glupih terminala