NOVEMBER 2021 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 35
TECH INSIGHTS
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE FACEBOOK OUTAGE
Facebook and its associated
services experienced a
six-hour outage on Oct.
4. Facebook, Instagram,
WhatsApp, and Oculus
suffered a major outage
that began just before noon.
The event lasted six hours,
preventing users from
accessing their social media
profiles, messaging apps,
and Oculus-based services.
How did this happen?
In a blog post issued
the night of the outage,
Facebook reported that the
outage was the result of a
configuration change to its
routers. This networking
traffic issue resulted in a
cascading disruption to
the way the company’s data
centers communicate.
What should have been a
routine Border Gateway
Protocol (BGP) update
wiped out the routing
information that allows
other networks to find
sites like Facebook and
Instagram. This was
especially disruptive
to Facebook’s internal
company processes
because they all rely on
their own platform.
Staff members communicate
using Facebook Messenger,
which was unavailable
while they were trying to
determine a resolution. This
only further disrupted their
recovery processes.
How significant was the
Facebook outage? This is
the worst outage Facebook
has experienced since 2019
when they were offline for
more than a day. While
Facebook services are
nonessential, they do offer
a low-cost platform for
small businesses, which are
undoubtedly hit the hardest
during outages like these.
What can we learn from
this? Routine processes
cannot be overlooked: If
something as minor as
a BGP update can take a
business like Facebook
offline for a quarter of a
day, consider what is at
stake at your business.
Anytime your staff
interacts with business
systems and data, you need
to ensure they’re doing so
carefully. One wrong click
could result in lost data or
a period of downtime.
How can we prepare for
next time? No matter how
big or how resource-rich
a business is, it can still
experience crippling
downtime. Make sure to
invest the right time and
resources in developing
your business continuity
and disaster recovery
processes.
Facebook has learned not
to rely on its own platform
as an internal messaging
solution — do you rely
too heavily on one tool as
well? Make sure you have
an alternative ready to go
so that you don’t have to
start from scratch when
the worst occurs.
As always, events like this
prove that IT is an errorprone
and complicated
part of the business world.
You need to plan ahead to
both prevent downtime
and mitigate the effect it
has on your business when
it can’t be avoided.
Kyriakos Kaimis is vice
president and general
manager of Custom
Computer Specialists.
Photo courtesy of Getty Images
C us t o m C o m p u t e r
Specialists is proud to
sponsor Tech Insights.
Since 1979, Custom has
been dedicated to providing
Long Island’s schools, local
government agencies,
healthcare facilities, and
businesses with advanced
technology solutions and
support. To learn more
about Custom Computer,
please email info@
customtech.com.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Kyriakos Kaimis
Success Begins Here.
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(800) 598-8989
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