Downtime is when a system, service, or machine is not working or is unavailable. In Information Technology (IT), downtime means that computer systems, networks, or applications cannot be accessed. This can disrupt operations and lead to financial losses. Downtime can happen during planned activities like maintenance and upgrades or from unexpected events such as equipment failures, software errors, or cyberattacks.
Downtime is typically identified through monitoring tools that track system health and performance metrics in real-time. These tools generate alerts when anomalies such as high latency, service failures, or infrastructure issues arise. Those alerts are then sent to incident management solutions, like ilert, to speed up the remediation.
Planned Downtime refers to scheduled interruptions that occur during system maintenance, updates, or upgrades. These downtimes are usually organized during off-peak hours to reduce the impact on operational activities. They are also publicly announced beforehand, and engineers commonly use maintenance windows to stop monitoring or incident management platforms from sending alerts. As soon as planned downtime ends, monitoring or incident management platforms are reverted back to their normal state.
Unplanned Downtime, on the other hand, describes unexpected outages resulting from unforeseeable events. This can include hardware failures, software issues, human errors, or external factors such as power outages and cyber incidents.
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Downtime is very often mentioned in combination with Service Level Agreements (SLAs). SLAs are contracts between service providers and clients that define the expected level of service, including how often the service should be up and running. SLAs set clear goals, such as maintaining 99.9% uptime, and describe what happens if these goals are not met, like financial penalties or service credits. Service providers must keep downtime to a minimum to meet these goals and avoid penalties.
Downtime can lead to significant financial losses for businesses. The extent of these losses can vary depending on the size of the company and its customer base. For instance, a recent article from Forbes reported that the cost of downtime for enterprises is approximately $9,000 per minute.
There is no simple answer to the question: how to reduce downtime. To succeed and reach 99.99% uptime, companies employ various strategies. Here are a few to consider:
