Gmail uptime

My manager at BigFix was having a discussion with our CFO about Gmail uptime (in the context of our email infrastructure uptime.)

Using this as a data source:
http://www.google.com/appsstatus#hl=en

and selecting Google Mail and Postini Services at the items to measure, he arrives at this:

Date	Service	Duration	Reason
4/9/2010	Postini	2:24	Unspecified Emergency Maintenance
4/7/2010	Core Gmail	11:20	HTML mode email down for "a small number of users"
4/2/2010	Postini	2:08	Failed Postini update
3/16/2010	Core Gmail	9:51	Inbound/Outbound Email was not routing
3/15/2010	Core Gmail	4:38	Users unable to access gmail accounts
3/10/2010	Core Gmail	0:50	Users unable to access gmail accounts
3/8/2010	Postini	0:29	Anti-Spam not anti-spamming
3/4/2010	Postini	0:58	Anti-Spam not anti-spamming
2/25/2010	Postini	7:46	Users unable to send email
		40:24

Total runtime (2 services) 2304
48 days, 24 hrs day, 2 services

Effective uptime
98.24%

I have not done my own math here to verify, just thought it would be interesting to share. Note that he gives them twice as many runtime hours since he's counting two services. I would tend to halve that, resulting in double the downtime percentage.

I thank Google for publishing their outage information, by the way.

Just a data point for the next time someone is asking you for more nines than is reasonable.

Contradiction

"They are all correct."

"How could they ALL be correct? They contradict each-other. You can't have Heaven and Valhalla be the afterlife. If Heaven exists then that means that Valhalla doesn't. And vice-versa."

"Think of it as parallel universes."

"But doesn't the idea of a God transcend multiple universes? Isn't God the god of all universes?"

"Yes."

"And so is Zeus?"

"Yes. Infinite, parallel parallel universes."

"Which universe is Earth in?"

"Earth is Earth. The afterlife is different. It is when you change over."

"So if I'm from Earth, which one do I go to?"

"It depends on what you believe. You determine where you go, when you cross over."

"So if I believe in Judeo-Christian Heaven?"

"Then you go there."

"But what if I believe in that, but don't think I lived well enough?"

"Then you go to Hell."

"Does that mean there isn't a God?"

"All of the gods are. You go to the one you believe in."

"What if I believe in reincarnation?"

"Then you will be reincarnated."

"On Earth?"

"On an Earth, yes."

"What about the atheists?"

"They cease to be."

"That doesn't seem fair. They die?"

"It is what they believe happens. It is what they cause to happen."

"So if you don't have faith in something, you die?"

"Faith is not a belief in what might happen. It is what happens. It causes it to happen. If you believe death is the end of your existence, then it is so."

"So where would I go?"

"What do you believe?"

"I don't know, really. I believe... or maybe I hope something happens. I always had a hard time believing one church was right and that the others were wrong. Or that any of them were right. I guess I figured I would find out when it happened. I hope I will have a chance to figure it all out afterward."

"That is how you ended up here."