Slashdot points to recent articles from New York Times and datacenterknowledge.com in an effort to answer this question. High availability of specific web sites and services is more and more an expectation of consumers, and the latest buzzwords of IT and the web emphasize “cloud computing”– that the stuff you keep online is theoretically always available.
It’s an old problem, revisited– do I trust the big names to know how to properly keep my web site going under heavy load, or do I decide that they’re “too popular” and have lost their touch, and that it’s better to roll my own solution?
The NYT article points to an interesting tool, downforeveryoneorjustme.com. Finally there’s a way to know if your favorite site is having global issues affecting all users, or if it’s something between your ISP and that site (or your computer and your ISP).