http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/021208-blackberry-outage-blame.html 

By Brad Reed
NetworkWorld.com
02/12/08

Research in Motion (RIM) said Tuesday that recent upgrades it performed 
on its security infrastructure were to blame for the service outages 
that hit its BlackBerry devices this week.

RIM said in a statement that its initial investigation into the outages 
pointed to problems with the BlackBerry service infrastructures internal 
data routing system, which had been recently upgraded to increase 
overall capacity. While RIM says that such upgrades to its system are 
routine, it has found that this particular upgrade hit a snag that 
caused several service delays. RIM doesnt specify why the system upgrade 
caused the outages, but the company notes that it fixed the problem 
quickly after identifying it, and that it expects no further 
complications with the upgrade.

RIM says that these findings are preliminary, that it is still 
investigating why the outages took place and that the company will 
continue its in-depth diagnostic analysis and will share additional 
information as available.

The disruptions first occurred Monday afternoon and affected customers 
of all major North American mobile operators and lasted for roughly 
two-and-a-half hours, interfering with their ability to send or receive 
messages, surf the Web or use the BlackBerry Internet Service Web site. 
While RIM has apologized to its customers for the inconvenience, the 
company also maintains that no messages were lost during any of the 
disruptions.

This weeks BlackBerry outage comes less than a year after a similar 
disruption knocked BlackBerry users offline last April. RIM said at the 
time that that particular outage was caused by the introduction of a 
software routine meant to optimize system cache memory.

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