Google Parent Alphabet Apologizes For Cloud Computing Outage

Google parent company Alphabet (GOOGL) has apologized for a major outage of its cloud computing network that disrupted users worldwide.The Silicon Valley-based technology giant said the outage that occurred on June 12 was caused by multiple layers of flawed recent updates. In all, more than 70 Google cloud services stopped working worldwide, knocking down or disrupting dozens of third-party services, including Cloudflare (NET) and Shopify (SHOP). Several Google products, including Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Meet malfunctioned for several hours during the cloud disruption. Now, Alphabet has issued a formal apology, saying: “We deeply apologize for the impact this outage has had… Google Cloud customers and their users trust their businesses to Google, and we will do better.”In May, Alphabet added a new feature to its quota policy checks for evaluating automated incoming requests, but the new feature wasn’t tested in real-world situations. As a result, the systems didn’t know how to properly handle data, leading to the cloud crash.While engineers at Alphabet figured out the problem 10 minutes into the crash, the incident lasted for seven hours. Going forward, the company said that it will change its architecture so if one system fails, it can still operate without crashing. Google said it will also audit all systems and improve its communications. GOOGL stock is down 7% this year and currently trading at $176.77 U.S. per share.