It has come to my attention that many people think it is a problem with our servers whenever the item server is down. This is not the case. We do not run the item servers, Valve does.

When Valve fixes their item server, it will start working on all servers. However, this isn't the only problem they are responsible for.

Servers randomly dropping from the master list.
Servers randomly dropping from quickplay.
Servers randomly dropping VAC.

All of these may occur at random points in the day, and often happen at least 2 times a week, especially after updates.

Most of the times these problems will fix themselves, but rarely it will require a full reboot to fix.