VOIP is like a cell phone, you never seem to realize how
much you depend on the service until you no longer have it. There were probably
lots of Skype users realizing just how much they missed Skype last week when
the service was down.
Skype at first seemed to be blaming Microsoft for the outage, but
came back later to clarify their position by stating that, “We don’t blame
anyone but ourselves. The Microsoft Update patches were merely a catalyst — a
trigger — for a series of events that led to the disruption of Skype, not the
root cause of it. And Microsoft has been very helpful and supportive
throughout.”
The high number of computer reboots from Skype users after Microsoft released security updates, which caused a flood of
log-in requests that when combined with a lack of peer-to-peer resources at the
time led to a failure of the service.
A Skype spokesperson went on to say that, “Unfortunately,
this time, for the first time, Skype was unable to rise to the challenge and
the reasons for this were exceptional. In this instance, the day’s Skype
traffic patterns, combined with the large number of reboots, revealed a
previously unseen fault in the P2P network resource allocation algorithm Skype
used. Consequently, the P2P network’s self-healing function didn’t work quickly
enough. Skype’s peer-to-peer core was not properly tuned to cope with the load
and core size changes that occurred on August 16. The reboots resulting from
software patching merely served as a catalyst. This combination of factors
created a situation where the self-healing needed outside intervention and
assistance by our engineers.”
Microsoft releases patches for Windows very frequently and
if you are wondering why this never happened before, Skype officials called
this occurrence a “Perfect Storm.” Rebooting super-nodes within the Skype
system combined with high-usage load during the reboots further combined with a
previously unseen bug in the Skype software and ultimately led to a system
wide outage of service.
When we contacted Microsoft for comments on the Skype
outage, Microsoft simply had this to say, “Windows Update is a routine service
Microsoft provides to its users to receive software updates, including last
Tuesday’s security updates, which were not unique. As indicated in Skype’s
blog, their specific disruption was caused by a bug in their software.”
