back to article Whoops! AVG data centre KO'd by 'unplanned' outage

Security biz AVG has been hit by an outage at its US data centre, possibly affecting its customers' email security services across all regions. The US data centre hosting the AVG Business CloudCare Email Security Service was the subject of an unplanned maintenance outage this morning, the company confirmed in a statement. "[ …

  1. BongoJoe

    "unplanned maintenance outage"

    What, pray, is one of these?

    Is it weael words for Cock Up or are they really trying to suggest that some BOFH wandered into work one morning and decided there and then to apply SP3 to the whole lot?

    1. Paul Webb

      Re: "unplanned maintenance outage"

      No, they just tried to install their bloatware on their own machines.

      1. chivo243 Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: "unplanned maintenance outage"

        @Paul Webb

        I remember long ago, installing AVG on some white boxes running Win98se. It was far more efficient than CrackAfee at the time.

        I read the above "unplanned maintenance outage" as one of those moments when the best of intentions give you the finger in return.

        1. Paul Webb

          Re: "unplanned maintenance outage"

          AVG used to be 'the one' but they lost that crown long ago and is more of a liability than anything else these days. Always worth keeping an eye on av-test.org and av-comparatives.org.

        2. PeterM42
          Trollface

          Re: "unplanned maintenance outage"

          er "CrackAfee" - do you mean McCRAPAfee?

      2. PNGuinn
        Trollface

        Re: "unplanned maintenance outage"

        Or perhaps they tried Norton?

    2. Florida1920

      Re: "unplanned maintenance outage"

      What, pray, is one of these?

      Example: New York Daily News photo.

  2. Nate Amsden

    Doesn't sound datacenter related

    They said it's a storage issue as you quoted in article.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      Re: Doesn't sound datacenter related

      Errmmmm last time I looked data centres still need storage.

      1. Nate Amsden

        Re: Doesn't sound datacenter related

        data centers most certainly do not need computer storage. They need power, they usually need cooling. They usually need walls and a roof. Data center outage to me implies power outage, natural disaster, physical structural damage etc.

        Quite likely this facility is shared(AVG doesn't sound like a big company, the facility my company's equipment in is more than 500,000 square feet and we have our 16x8 little corner of it) and probably has dozens to hundreds or more clients in the datacenter.

        1. Florida1920

          Re: Doesn't sound datacenter related

          AVG doesn't sound like a big company

          Why not check?

          AVG Technologies (formerly named Grisoft) is a Czech company formed in 1991 by Jan Gritzbach and Tomáš Hofer, with corporate offices in Europe and the United States. The company specializes in computer security software. As of February 2, 2015 over 200 million active users [the El Reg article mentions 197 million] used AVG´s software products and services, which include internet security, performance optimization, and personal privacy and identity protection applications.

          Number of employees 1013 worldwide

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Stop

          Re: Doesn't sound datacenter related

          Size of company is irrelevant. I know a few small companies that have massive DC's, due to the fact they do a lot of data processing.

          Our INTERNAL IT amount to 72 racks in each of our own 2x data centres and we are no means a "big" company. About 50% of these racks use shared storage.

          If AVG have their own DC's (I would hope they do, due to the nature of their work), they may well have all their customer facing racks on their own shared storage.

          So don't judge your 16x8 in the same context of others.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    NSA installing fiber splitters.

    When the NSA fiber splitters shaved off their 20% of the signal, AVG's gear probably packed up forwarding. Still I'm sure the NSA will stump up for new optics, wouldn't want the plebeians to notice anything awry.

  4. 90
    Thumb Up

    khan

    Now a day its seem each security company have threat from hacker or virus but I don't understand why they don't have permanent solution for these kind of attack.

  5. John 104

    @Nate Amsden

    "AVG doesn't sound like a big company"

    They're nobody. No customers, no revenue, no computers. The whole thing is vaporware.

    Where have you been for the last decade? Or two? These guys are long time players in the AV market.

  6. JavaIsMyPoison

    Now they know what some of their users feel like...

  7. x 7

    AVG has a f'up like this roughly every year. And soon recovers.

    On the basis that any news is good news, its the quickest way for them to raise their public profile and remind people they're still around. Soon the shares will start creeping up as people begin to notice them again - and register the synergies from the recent takeover of Norman

  8. CrosscutSaw

    Popup

    It was probably an annoying popup asking them to upgrade the datacenter, and they didn't click the 'x' quite right. That would be ironic. And funny.

    1. x 7

      Re: Popup

      Hey Crosscut

      is your middle name Rip Van Winkle? This story is oooooold

      1. CrosscutSaw

        Re: Popup

        Hey x7

        Yes, yes it is! I just woke up to find out there are still trolls like you on the internet. :P

        1. x 7

          Re: Popup

          yep, us trolls always pick on the half-wits, and the slow (and grumpy)

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