From TechCrunch:

According to Skype the outage was caused by “a massive restart of our user’s computers across the globe within a very short timeframe as they re-booted after receiving a routine software update” which The Register points out was Microsoft’s monthly patch Tuesday.

Apparently Skype had expected (and previously survived) such an event - but a software glitch on their part got to them this time.

The Internet is causing amazing issues of scale for computer science.  I can’t even begin to imagine how you would create a test environment to adequately simulate a user base as large as Skype’s.

InfoSec and IRM have the same issues.  As we create and develop products and services for the consumer population, it is very difficult to find the multitude of areas where a complex system may possibly degrade.

Posted on August 20