While some time has passed since the WGA temporary service outage we had back in August, I wanted to share some more about what we've learned since then and the steps we've been taking to prevent this sort of thing from happening again.

First off, we've been taking another hard look at our operations and the tools and processes we use to run the validation service for WGA, and we've made some changes including to how we roll out updates to the back-end servers (it was a specific upgrade to our system that analyzes product keys that caused the issue in August) and we've been adding to and improving the tools used to make sure our infrastructure is solid. As part of that, we've revamped the monitoring that is used to track what's happening within our server infrastructure so that we can identify potential problems faster - ideally before any customer gets impacted. But also as part of that, we've been making changes in how we can help our customers when an issue does arise that impacts them. In addition to Web based support, live support is also available worldwide. In North America, we are implementing 24x7 customer support and phone based technical support, so customers can log an issue, check the status of an issue, and get information at any time. Outside North America, we are looking into implementing the same 24x7 schedule - more to come on that later. Free support for WGA-related issues is provided worldwide (at least Microsoft won't charge you but your phone company might for the call) for all customers as well.