The most common form of domain name and DNS unplanned outage is the unintentional domain expiry.
I'll say that again: the most common cause of a domain name and DNS unplanned outage is the unintentional domain expiry.
Key domain expires, hilarity ensues
- Christmas weekend, 1999: Microsoft let passport.com lapse, bringing down the entire Hotmail email system. A good samaritan paid the $35 renewal fee out of their own pocket to re-enable services over the long holiday weekend.
- July, 2014: SonyOnline.net expires, bringing down Everquest, Planetquest 2, and all Sony online games.
- November, 2014: Some guy who's writing a book for Packt Publishing, outlining best practices for managing your key domain assets lets a domain upon ...