Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp saw a significant outage on Monday, October 4, 2021 — the longest of its kind in recent memory for such major platforms. The disruption left some companies scrambling to find a replacement for their instant messaging needs, effectively underscoring the importance of platform stability, particularly for those businesses and organizations that rely upon WhatsApp for their enterprise messaging needs.
What Caused the Outage on Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram?
A hacking incident or other intentional cyber attack was widely discussed as a potential cause of the recent outage, but according to Facebook’s blog on the topic, a configuration error was identified as the culprit.
“Our engineering teams have learned that configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centers caused issues that interrupted this communication. This disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way our data centers communicate, bringing our services to a halt,” Facebook indicated in an October 4 statement on its blog.
The statement also indicated that, “The underlying cause of this outage also impacted many of the internal tools and systems we use in our day-to-day operations, complicating our attempts to quickly diagnose and resolve the problem…We want to make clear that there was no malicious activity behind this outage — its root cause was a faulty configuration change on our end. We also have no evidence that user data was compromised as a result of this downtime.”
Facebook was down for approximately six hours but disruptions across all three platforms — WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook — were reported through the early hours of Tuesday, October 5, 2021.
The outage had a dramatic impact on the company’s stocks too. Facebook shares dipped by 4.9%, which represents the most significant one-day dip since November 2020.
WhatsApp as an Enterprise Messaging Platform
Unfortunately, the recent WhatsApp outage affected countless companies that use the free instant messaging app in the course of their daily operations. Recent years have seen the business world gradually shift way from an email-based communication system to instant messaging. DMs tend to align well with the way in which Gen X-ers and Millennials naturally want to communicate — brief, to-the-point snippets, sent immediately when the need arises.
For those who do use WhatsApp as their primary instant messaging platform, the outage’s impact on businesses both large and small was potentially very significant — especially when you consider that companies had no idea how long the outage might last. It’s certain some companies were left scrambling to figure out how to fill the communication gap.
Instant messaging is rapidly becoming a preferred method for communication in a business environment because of its speed, efficacy and intuitiveness. But reliability is essential. This most recent event made it clear that even a rare outage can have dramatic and potentially costly consequences.
The Advantages of a Custom Enterprise Messaging Platform
A good enterprise messaging platform can benefit your business in many ways. Here are just a few benefits of an enterprise messaging app like 7T’s SayHey Messenger.
- Data Control: You own and control all of your data. This can be particularly important for companies that require a higher level of privacy and security.
- In-Platform Integration: SayHey Messenger can be integrated into an existing enterprise software platform, such as a ERP, CRM or other business platform. This allows for a seamless user experience.
- Uptime Control: With your own enterprise messaging app like SayHey Messenger, you have greater control over uptime (and downtime.) You can schedule maintenance and updates during off-peak times and if a problem does arise, you’ll be overseeing the situation and won’t be left in the dark when it comes to the nature of the problem and the anticipated timeframe for a fix.
7T’s SayHey Messenger platform can be integrated into an existing enterprise software platform or used as a stand-alone mobile app, offering tremendous versatility that aligns with the way you do business.
At 7T, we have earned a reputation as a top Dallas mobile app development company, as we develop dynamic mobile apps such as SayHey Messenger and innovative software platforms, from CRM platforms and ERP development, to Snowflake data solutions. Our world-class development team collaborates with company leaders who are seeking to solve problems and drive ROI through digital transformation. 7T integrates cutting-edge solutions into virtually every project; we’re here to deliver collaborative, multi-phased software development services to clients in all business sectors.
7T maintains offices in Dallas, Houston, Chicago, and Austin, but our clientele spans the globe. If you’re ready to learn more about our enterprise messaging app, SayHey Messenger, contact 7T today.