Since earlier this morning, Skype went down. Yes! The VoIP software application we are all familiar with went down, leaving millions users shouting: “Skype won’t connect“. Too bad no one will hear them scream 😉
Skype has became an integral part of many Internet users daily habit, used for peer-to-peer voice and video chats and also to make a living. While it was a certain power outage that has caused the Skype infrastructure to crash today, they have a different method of explaining so; speaking of nodes, supernodes, and that kind of stuff. Here is Skype’s response for the downtime:
Earlier today, we noticed that the number of people online on Skype was falling, which wasn’t typical or expected, so we began to investigate.
Skype isn’t a network like a conventional phone or IM network – instead, it relies on millions of individual connections between computers and phones to keep things up and running. Some of these computers are what we call ‘supernodes’ – they act a bit like phone directories for Skype. If you want to talk to someone, and your Skype app can’t find them immediately (for example, because they’re connecting from a different location or from a different device) your computer or phone will first try to find a supernode to figure out how to reach them.
Under normal circumstances, there are a large number of supernodes available. Unfortunately, today, many of them were taken offline by a problem affecting some versions of Skype. As Skype relies on being able to maintain contact with supernodes, it may appear offline for some of you.What are we doing to help? Our engineers are creating new ‘mega-supernodes’ as fast as they can, which should gradually return things to normal. This may take a few hours, and we sincerely apologise for the disruption to your conversations. Some features, like group video calling, may take longer to return to normal.
Over 20 Million Skype users have been affected by this sudden downtime, and with growing competition, such mishaps maybe bigger then just some downtime.
Has Skype downtime affected you? Your thought…
Via: ReadWriteWeb
