Tech Newz

If you ever wondered what would happen when a cloud service fails, then you don’t have to wonder much. Earlier today customers of T-Mobile and the Sidekick data services provider, Danger, a subsidiary of Microsoft lost access to all their data. There are some who believe that this data wipeout is because of a botched upgrade. Why it happened matters little to those who are unlikely to get their data back, according to a note posted on T-Mobile forums.

Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device – such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos – that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger. That said, our teams continue to work around-the-clock in hopes of discovering some way to recover this information. However, the likelihood of a successful outcome is extremely low.

Danger’s service works in a very simple fashion. The devices are in constant communication with a server which does everything from checking email, fetching webpages and maintaining contact with all the folks we know on instant messaging networks. It also keeps copies of other communications (such as text messages), address books and calendars. It also stores photos on its servers as well. In short what we have is a device that is a combination of a cell phone and an almost dumb terminals.

This wipeout reminds of The Bourne Identity, where Jason Bourne spends the entire length of the book trying to find out his real identity because his memory has been wiped out because of an accident. T-Mobile and Danger have done something like that. By losing the servers, what T-Mobile/Danger have done is the equivalent of wiping out the collective memory of its customers.

T-Mobile is advising customers to not reset their device by removing their batteries or letting their batteries drain out, because if that happens then all the information that is local to the device is going to be wiped out.

This development only highlights the many risks we face as we romp into our cloud-centric future. This is one of the many setbacks we have faced in recent months. The Google Mail outage seems like a bad dream compared to this nightmare. After all, Google didn’t actually lose our emails. But in this case, many may have no option to go back to square one — and start over.