Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite Standard (BPOS-S) is currently enjoying its final days as the lynchpin of Microsoft’s cloud strategy before Microsoft Office 365 takes over. But it sounds like it’s not going into retirement quietly: Microsoft is reporting that BPOS-S is back to full functionality after a series of problems kept users from accessing their webmail and delayed delivery of messages by as much as nine hours.
There were apparently three incidents, starting May 10, all with some bearing on the Exchange Online component of the suite. The first two were issues with malformed e-mail traffic, which Corporate Vice-President of Microsoft Online Services Dave Thompson wrote is usually something Exchange can handle – but the first incident delayed e-mail for six hours to nine hours, and the second incident, on May 12, kept messages held up for 45 minutes.
A separate incident, also on May 12, resulted in the failure in the DNS hosting the http://mail.microsoftonline.com domain. From 1:04 a.m. to 4:52 a.m. Pacific, some ActiveSync devices weren’t working properly – and kept users from accessing the Outlook Web App entirely.
The bright side of these e-mail outages, Thompson wrote, is that Microsoft learned some important lessons from all this:
As a result of Tuesday’s incident, we feel we could have communicated earlier and been more specific. Effective today, we updated our communications procedures to be more extensive and timely. We understand that it is critical for our customers to be as fully informed as possible during service-impacting events. We will continue to improve the timeliness and specificity of our communications.
Thompson also reiterated that this was a BPOS issue with no bearing on any present or future Office 365 service. But it seems odd that this should happen so soon after Microsoft Office Live for Small Business had a “disruption” of its own.
Of course, as in the Office Live incident, the fact that Microsoft is discussing the outage at all puts the company miles ahead of Amazon Web Services, PR-wise. But one question remains: Why are so many cloud services experiencing disruptions recently?
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The 
This is just another indication of why SMB will be VERY slow to trust the cloud. They like to know where their data is, and know who is responsible for it.
Nick
Here at ChannelCloud we have designed our systems so that even if our Exchange farm is down then all users need to do is browse to a different URL and continue to send/receive as normal
Nick: I think it depends on the type of SMB. Newly formed SMBs — true startups without any legacy IT infrastructure — will look to the cloud first. But those that already have data on-premise may hold tight to that data… Also, I hope all is well with your business. I know you’ve been in hiring/expansion mode. Keep us posted with business updates.
Paul: Please keep us posted as ChannelCloud achieves business milestones (i.e., onboards new VARs and MSPs, introduces new services, etc.).
-jp
Joe:
I agree with you completely. I see no advantage to a new SMB investing in Exchange & Sharepoint on premise solutions. Too many very good hosted solutions are available today.
I also believe the SMB and their advisor need to be realistic about how the on premise solutions they put together actually perform relative to modern cloud solutions. I argue that the best on premise solution in an SMB will never approach the availability, security and reliability of a well designed cloud implementation.
A newly formed SMB also needs to consider the alternatives to Exchange, etc. available today as well. For example, Gmail is a great way to get a hosted email solution going with almost no cost.
The cloud creates a lot of possibilities for SMBs: improved functionality, lower risk, less management overhead, lower cost to name a few. The SMB should carefully consider what the right balance is for their business and adopt that solution. Don’t be caught in the past by fear of something new.
Mitchell Cipriano
http://www.demandbydesign.com
Cloud or otherwise, if you are not prepared for an outage, does it really matter? Whether it’s your mail server, Internet connection or natural disaster, if mail is critical, have a backup plan.