What started out as “the worst loss of consumer data” will probably now be called “Microsoft’s Worst PR Disaster”.
An update from Microsoft’s own Roz Ho was posted early this morning on the T-Mobile Sidekick forum. She says that they have recovered “most, if not all, customer data” and that it will all soon be restored according to plan. She also confirms that it was indeed a system failure that wiped out the database and back-ups.
So here’s hoping that the Sidekick Disaster will soon be over and everything will be back to normal. I’m still wondering confirmation of the technical details on how this all happened and why Microsoft was so quick to say that all the data was “almost certainly has been lost” early on. Oh and one last handy tip to Microsoft/Danger: Make an application so that Sidekick users can ACTUALLY backup their data themselves.
The full post from Microsoft:
Updated: 10/15/2009 1:00 AM PDT
Microsoft Confirms Data Recovery for Sidekick Users
Data Restoration to Begin as Soon as Possible for Affected Customers
Dear T-Mobile Sidekick customers,
On behalf of Microsoft, I want to apologize for the recent problems with the Sidekick service and give you an update on the steps we have taken to resolve these problems.
We are pleased to report that we have recovered most, if not all, customer data for those Sidekick customers whose data was affected by the recent outage. We plan to begin restoring users’ personal data as soon as possible, starting with personal contacts, after we have validated the data and our restoration plan. We will then continue to work around the clock to restore data to all affected users, including calendar, notes, tasks, photographs and high scores, as quickly as possible.
We now believe that data loss affected a minority of Sidekick users. If your Sidekick account was among those affected, please continue to log into these forums for the latest updates about when data restoration will begin, and any steps you may need to take. We will work with T-Mobile to post the next update on data restoration timing no later than Saturday.
We have determined that the outage was caused by a system failure that created data loss in the core database and the back-up. We rebuilt the system component by component, recovering data along the way. This careful process has taken a significant amount of time, but was necessary to preserve the integrity of the data.
We will continue working closely with T-Mobile to restore user data as quickly as possible. We are eager to deliver the level of reliable service that our incredibly loyal customers have become accustomed to, and we are taking immediate steps to help ensure this does not happen again. Specifically, we have made changes to improve the overall stability of the Sidekick Service and initiated a more resilient backup process to ensure that the integrity of our database backups is maintained.
Once again, we apologize for this situation and the inconvenience that it has created. Please know that we are working all-out to resolve this situation and restore the reliability of the service.
Sincerely,
Roz Ho
Corporate Vice President
Premium Mobile Experiences, Microsoft Corporation