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Even Facebook faced downtime
At current it seems likely this downtime has been caused by a cache server failure followed by a load balancing issue. This means requests are not getting redirected to an applicable server and as such are failing at the point of request.
Update 09:24 BST: After around 29 minutes of Downtime Facebook has started to recover for many users and our global uptime monitoring servers have started to receive status code 200). There are still some lingering speed issues and some countries are finding the service fluctuate.
Original: If you thought Downtime was just an issue that small independent stores have to deal with then think again. The world’s largest social network is currently experiencing a global blackout. Starting around 8.54am BST the social network has been producing 503 errors (indicating no server available to handle the request).
We got alerted to this issue within seconds and are working on a resolution. I don’t expect it will take any longer than half an hour – Facebook Source
This isn’t the first time the social network has experienced downtime and won’t be the last, though this downtime highlights the importance of having a 3rd party monitoring service and even more importantly a remotely hosted status page.
James Barnes
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