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Google outage – resolved

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Google outage – resolved

#811

Post by woofie11 »

thu2111 wrote: post #759
woofie11 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interviewed for Google many years ago and recently. The expectations fell through the floor. I've see plots of number of employees too. I'm not sure how Google will dig itself out of that one.

They made you interview again even after having worked there before? That's odd. It used to be that they didn't do that.

I never worked for Google. They wanted to hire me after the first set of interviews, but I took a different opportunity at the time. Interview process was an intense, and the interviewers were sharp. I came out even more impressed with Google. This was way back in the day -- early '00s. I would totally be excited to work for that Google. It's just that, well, there are lots of awesome things to do, and I had (what seemed like at the time) a more interesting option. I sometimes had regrets and sometimes not.

Second process was maybe 2-3 years ago. It didn't get to a full onsite, since after a few conversations with the team, it was clear there wasn't a fit. The old arrogance was still there, but without the same sharpness or cleverness. I spoke to a team working on a new product (under NDA) in a field I had a lot of experience in, and:

1) There were computer scientists without a clear understanding of the target market domain.

2) They believed they were the best-and-brightest, and didn't need to consult experts in the field.

3) There was a lot of hype and salesmanship.

I like to be surrounded by smart people, and it felt like I'd be the sharpest guy in that room. I was a better computer scientist, AND better domain expert in the field the product was in than anyone on that team. That's not a position I want to find myself in.

And I have a job which pays a lot less than Google, but I'm surrounded by smart people I learn a heck of a lot from, where I'm working on meaningful things, and having fun. I'm also continuing to build my personal brand.

Now a few years later, the product they were working on never shipped, so if I worked for Google, I would have likely been on a failed project. On the other hand, my mortgage would likely be paid off.

Re: Google outage – resolved

#812

Post by mav3rick »

mav3rick wrote: post #807
xtracto wrote: post #790

On reddit thread there are some really good jokes about this [1] related to their asinine interview questions. Like: > Did they try to fix them by inverting a binary tree? >> Yeah maybe implementing a quick LRU cache on the nearest whiteboard will help them out here >> Did they try checking what shape their manhole cover is? >> Dev ops was too busy out counting all the street lights in the United States [1] https://w…

None of these are asked in G interviews. The commenters are asinine.

None of you have taken interviews at G. There's a strict edict to discard these questions.

"Dev ops was too busy out counting all the street lights in the United States"

If it was a Consulting interview any one would have gotten in. Thankfully no one asks these at G.

Re: Google outage – resolved

#813

Post by mav3rick »

xtracto wrote: post #808
mav3rick wrote: post #807

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of these are asked in G interviews. The commenters are asinine.

No? https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en

Okay ? No one's discounting his achievements. What's wrong with knowing stuff about a binary tree ? Is ignorance a badge of honor now ?

Re: Google outage – resolved

#814

Post by techphys_91 »

smarx007 wrote: post #454
jacquesm wrote: post #196

So, anybody still feel like arguing that 'the cloud' is a viable back-up? Or is that a sore point right now? Just for a moment imagine: what if it never comes back again? Of course it will, - at least, it better - but what if it doesn't? And if it does, are you going to take countermeasures in case it happens again or is it just going to be 'back to normal' again?

Of course it's viable as a backup. Availability != realibility. My data is still reliably saved in the cloud even if there is an outage for a few hours. The key point is backup, e.g. Dropbox. When you use Google Docs, it becomes a single source of truth and a SPOF.

This depends on the circumstances. If your personal photos are unaccessible then maybe it doesn't matter, but if it's your documentation for a mission critical bit of infrastructure then a few hours could be very significant. Somebody in that situation probably wouldn't agree with your assertion that "availability != reliability". If I can't access it when I need it then I wouldn't consider it reliable.

Re: Google outage – resolved

#815

Post by robertlagrant »

__s wrote: post #690
papito wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Multi-cloud" only works if you stick with the basics. Like disk storage, compute, and a well-supported database. Once you tie in into a cloud's specific offerings.....

It's getting convoluted now that cloud providers seem to realize there's demand for this https://aws.amazon.com/hybrid https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/azure-arc https://cloud.google.com/anthos Full disclosure: I work for Azure. Don't work on Arc tho. Don't have experience being a customer for these products

I find the Anthos docs and talks so confusing. Half of them say Anthos is for hybrid between on-prem and GCP. The other half say it's for multicloud and hybrid.

Re: Google outage – resolved

#816

Post by robertlagrant »

kalleboo wrote: post #405
abalos wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, what response time do you expect on a page like that? And what level of detail? I'd much rather have their team focus on fixing this as fast as possible than trying to update that dashboard in the first 5 minutes.

It should be faster than it takes TechCrunch to write an article about it

TechCrunch don't need to verify anything.

Re: Google outage – resolved

#817

Post by rococode »

mav3rick wrote: post #813
xtracto wrote: post #808

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No? https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en

Okay ? No one's discounting his achievements. What's wrong with knowing stuff about a binary tree ? Is ignorance a badge of honor now ?

Yeah, nothing wrong with not having memorized how to do that - it's certainly not often useful in practice. But if you're given the definitions and a couple minutes to figure it out (which, in an interview, you are), and you actually can't come up with the 10 lines of code to do it, maybe that question is working as intended after all...

Re: Google outage – resolved

#819

Post by mk89 »

rachelbythebay wrote: post #803
eric_khun wrote: post #669

If you pay for Google Services, they have an SLA (service level agreement) of 99.9% [1]. If their services are down more than 43 minutes this month[2], you can request “free days” of usage. Edit: Services were down from ~12:55pm to ~1:52pm, it's 57minutes. Thanks hiby007 [1] https://workspace.google.com/intl/en/terms/sla.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_availability#Percentage_c...

Your nines or their nines? I bet if you personally can't use it, but their overall reliability meets the bar, then they're within SLA. Don't ask why I know this.

You know there are companies who build crawlers or health check agents exactly for this purpose, so that they know precisely from when to when the service they pay or they need for their business doesn't work and went out of SLA. I think it's brilliant and the only way to make any company pay. I believe you can sometimes get away with a couple of pingdom checks/jobs.

Re: Google outage – resolved

#820

Post by patrickthebold »

zeroping wrote: post #753
patrickthebold wrote: post #736

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like you want insurance. As with the hospital bill you'd generally be paying a bunch of extra money for your health insurance plan to not get stuck with the bill. Not sure that exists for businesses, but I'd expect you'd need to go shopping separately if you want that. Seems like a good business idea if it doesn't exist.

Independent 'a service was down' insurance isn't the same though. It is important for the cost to come out of the provider's pocket, thus giving them a huge financial incentive to not be down. Having that incentive in place is the most important part of an SLA.

I hear you, but there's going to be a cost for that. For the sake of argument, say Google changes the SLA as you wish and ups the cost of their offering accordingly.

Would they gain or lose market share?

I don't think it's obvious one way or the other.

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