Web Uptime is Here to Stay

The latest events in Egypt have emphasized how important the Internet has become in our lives. The public upheaval in Egypt has been spontaneously organized by citizens on the streets and through Internet services such as Facebook, Youtube and Twitter. Egyptians have been posting information about the happenings to the web as well as calling out for action which others have picked up and followed. Outside Egypt, the world has been following reports coming out through classical communication mediums like radio and TV but also through a myriad of websites which have continuously posted reports about the happenings.

Beyond the democratization of information that now flows directly from and to people on the web, the events have shown that it is getting harder and harder to ignore or disconnect the web.
When Facebook and Twitter were blocked by the government, people found ways around the block by using proxy sites that others have setup around the world for them to use as a proxy against those services. When the government realized the block is ineffective, it disconnected the entire Internet to prevent communications. However, this resulted in the paralysis of the economy which then was standing still. Since so much of the communications traffic is now going through the internet, disconnecting it is paralyzing. Communications are difficult, websites are down, some phone lines do not work, commerce and payments are problematic, and so forth. It is akin to disconnecting electricity which modern life has become so dependent on.

As the Internet evolves further in the next years, it will become more and more difficult to ignore or disconnect it. Uptime and reach-ability are transitioning from a nice to have function into a necessity; for whole economies as well as individual businesses and websites, uptime will be the lifeblood of their being.

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