Gmail back after two-hour outage

Google gave no explanation for the two-hour outage, which saw gmail, Google drive, docs, spreadsheets and presentation to be unavailable. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

GOOGLE suffered disruptions on several of its cloud-based services including Google Mail for about two hours overnight for reasons that were not disclosed.

The apps status dashboard of the world's most popular search engine indicated "service disruptions" for Google Mail, Google Drive, Google Documents, Google Spreadsheets and Google Presentations.

It also reported a total "service outage" for its "admin control panel / API" used by administrators of Google Apps domains.

The worldwide outage began around 10pm (AEST), but by 1.30am, the dashboard indicated that all services were back in full service.

There was no explanation for the outage, but Google said "less than 0.007 per cent" of its Google Mail user base was affected.

"We apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support," it said.

"Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better."

Cloud-based computing services - in which email, documents and other data from many different sources are filed and accessed from a single shared server via the Internet - is growing.

Last year, Google said its Gmail service has more than 425 million users, and that 500 million businesses use its various Google Apps.

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