This is not a security issue, all customers remain protected.
In fact, it's more secure than ever, 'cos no-one can hack into your account and change the settings!
Okay, so you can't log in and do that either, but It's really secure...
Symantec.cloud’s portal is back online following a day-long outage. However, sysadmins report a continuing inability to perform basic functions such as adding new email accounts for new starters at the corporate firms they manage. Problems with the system followed a database crash on Monday morning that dragged on until …
Not sure why everyone keeps banging on about just the portal access when yesterday from 11-3pm the whole of Symantec Web Security content-filtering service was down.
Surprised the Register hasn't picked up on this bigger story as this affected all outbound Internet (unless you decoupled the CSP/proxy settings in your environment). Unfortunately we have a MSS who don't know how to do that (seriously).
So another multiple geo-region, supposed resilient service that isn't. And Symantec make $$BILLIONS$$
So maybe that's why they're spinning loads of communication about the management portal only (and the Register was suckered). Read the comments on the other story before you create a new article!
In case anyone was wondering, these *kinds* of centralized-big-iron system DOWNTIME issues happened "back in the day", back in the 70's, when everybody used timesharing systems, nobody had a PC, etc. etc. and if the "big iron" went down, EVERYBODY went down.
The cloud is HIGHLY overrated. There have been *SEVERAL* attempts at re-leveraging the "megaserver, light client" paradigm, when the more OBVIOUS thing to leverage was the 'distributed computing' capabilities of "all of those smart clients".
in any case, "the cloud" is *HIGHLY* overrated.
The Cloud: Over-provisioned capacity, primitive load-balancers, excellent automation and very limited configurations.
You can do it yourself, but most companies lack the discipline as well as having holes in expertise. Plus companies nearly always have in-house expertise which picks up the slack when the cloud fails to be the right architecture. Cloud is great when you have an IT department which can do the difficult things cloud can't.
The question is, will commoditising the low end, reduce the skill pool available at the high-end. When the large companies are all running O365 & GMail, who is going to try to write a new mail & calendar system? Will cheap, universally availability and integration lead to complete stagnation? How far do you think you'll get hosting an email and office suite package on Google's cloud or Azure?