eBay's Outage Sends Shudders, but Solutions Aren't Easy

The day eBay's (EBAY Quote) Web site crashed for 22 hours, rival Onsale's (ONSL Quote) Chief Technology Officer Alan Fisher breathed a sigh of relief. At least it wasn't us, he thought. Fisher had cause to pat himself on the back. Unlike eBay, Onsale had several backup systems for its Web site in place.

Three weeks after eBay's outage, which led investors to shave off almost $6 billion from the company's market capitalization, it's clear that had the online auctioneer deployed a backup system, its crash would have been much less severe. What is less evident is whether eBay has fully absorbed the lessons of the crash.

At first, eBay's reaction was to blame its hardware provider, Sun Microsystems (SUNW Quote). One technology analyst for several prominent hedge funds, which are both long and short eBay, says eBay "always points the finger." ...