Netflix Website Outage Delays DVD Deliveries
The Netflix outage that happened yesterday is continuing to have lingering effects as many, many rentals are being delayed from shipping.
Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey told USA Today that the outage that occurred from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. pacific time on Monday also caused a disruption at distribution centers. That disruption will delay many DVD shipments at least one day.
Should We Cut Netflix Some Slack?
This is quite a shock to Netflix loyalists. After all in the nine years of Netflix's existence this is the second longest outage, ever. I'm sure many are realizing that Netflix isn't so perfect and that there's definitely some disadvantages to using the service.
Personally, I would imagine that the delay wouldn't affect the average consumer much, but the people that use DVDs from Netflix for teaching or presentation materials may be out of luck waiting for materials for the middle or latter part of this week. Then again, they can always stream the material, but that is only if using a Windows-based machine because despite the popularity, Netflix's streaming agent does not work on the Mac operating system.
Most users are likely wondering if this will ever happen again, and because Swasey is not disclosing information about what caused the outage there is no way to tell. Netflix's history would suggest that this is a rare occurrence. But I'm sure Blockbuster would be happy to take any customers not satisfied with the Netflix outage.
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No doubt that Netflix is built atop a lot of complex programming, as well as having to rely on outside forces (outside contracting companies, online networks) to ensure their token stability.
I choose to give Netflix the benefit of the doubt - anything complex enough to be such a full-service online entity is sure to meet with a glitch or two now and then. With 9 years of a positive history, they deserve a chance,.
They pulled together and solved the problem in less than a day, which means everyone at the company was no doubt working overtime.
I firmly believe that every single online company in the world is subject to unexpected outages based on complex programming and the nature of the internet itself. I have no doubt that companies like Blockbuster, in their lifetime, will definitely suffer similiar outages as well.
Love my Netflix, but for the past several months around the end or 1st of the month I have experienced 6-7 day turn around times. Only once was this due to a DVD not being available at my local center. It would be nice if when a DVD isn't available at my local center that the next available DVD in my queue would be shipped.
I also have noticed Netflix no longer advertises next day shipments.
I figure they are experiencing either growth pains or money pains or a combination of both.
The person who wrote this article is so obviously pulling for BlockBuster. But I wouldn't switch or give another cent to Blockbuster after all the years of them ripping off the public with their late fees and high rental costs. Finally someone came along and cut them off at the knees and now their going to be run out of business by Netflix, good ridance.
I am really impressed with Netflix. I can only imagine what a logistics nightmare it is to run the inventory and delivery system they created. The website is fast and easy to use. I only had one disc which did not get received back by Netflix in a day, and I think that was because the bar code didn't show through the envelope so it required manual sorting. Blockbuster doesn't even come close to competing with Netflix on price. I will not stop using Netflix over a single computer outage.
As previously stated, Netflix is an excellent service and website.
It is, of course, impossible for any organization to manage computing and human resources so that they execute perfectly all the time, every time.
It could have been a network failure, network equipment failure, web server, web application, database or storage failure or just a mistake technical personnel made when upgrading or configuring any of the aforementioned.
C'mon, haven't you every accidentally dropped the production database because you thought you were logged in to a development or QA server? :)
The real question here is whether Netflix knew about this outage before it was reported by customers. If they did...Kudos for having proactive web application monitoring like AlertSite.com (whom I work for), and have they adjusted their procedures so they can recover more quickly next time.
I would suggest the costs to avoid all possible failures are too large for most organization to bear and that we should cut them some slack.
And really, is one more day before you receive your next movie really that big of a deal.
11 hours though...that sure is a long time.
Ken Godskind
http://www.alertsite.com
Yeah, you go ahead and shop Blockbuster. Good luck finding anything worth watching. I'll stick with good old Netflix. We can live through 11 hours of no DVD's. Hey, maybe we could go to the park? Whadya say?