Data center downtime is a nightmare for C-Levels. When a data center experiences downtime, all enterprise applications become unusable, leading to severe losses such as loss of potential revenue, the collapse of public trust, and even lawsuits.
What is Data Center Downtime?
The definition of “data center downtime” varies from organization to organization, but it usually involves when IT systems are unavailable to their users due to a breakdown or malfunction. This can be anything from a few hours to several days or weeks. The period covered by the study also varies from organization to organization, but generally, it covers up to six months before and after the actual downtime incident.
In other words, it includes all the time and money spent before and after a particular outage: for example, if an outage lasts for 1 hour, then the study period includes all the costs incurred during the calendar month when the incident occurred.
What causes data center downtime?
The most likely culprits are hardware problems or human error. The first step in avoiding severe downtime is ensuring all of your hardware is functioning correctly. Outdated hardware can cause system crashes and corruption, so you should perform thorough testing every so often to ensure that your hardware still operates as well as it did when it was new.
Hardware failures can be due to the collapse of the hardware itself or due to environmental factors like power surges or temperature changes. It would be best if you took precautions against both types of failures by keeping your servers in a dry, cool room and investing in hardware from reputable manufacturers known for their reliability.
Data Center Downtime Costs
The data center is the heart of any IT system, and downtime can be highly costly for businesses. In addition to the loss of revenue from disruptions in business operations, the cost of data center downtime includes both direct and indirect costs:
The direct costs include the following:
- Costs of repairing damage to hardware and software caused by a disaster or other incident.
- Costs associated with manual recovery efforts include hiring contractors, buying equipment, and paying overtime wages.
- Costs incurred during the time taken to rebuild systems and recover lost data. This includes salaries for staff charged with rebuilding systems; cost of materials needed to repair damaged hardware; building rental costs while systems are offline (if applicable); etc.
The indirect costs include the following:
- Losses from decreased employee productivity due to lack of access to critical systems.
- Potential losses from missed opportunities due to lost data or systems downtime.
For example, if your organization experiences data center downtime for 4 hours on one day, that’s $146k in direct costs alone. If you experience total downtime over a weekend or holiday when employees aren’t working, this is just an indirect cost that your organization can absorb.
Gartner predicts that by 2022, 4% of enterprise IT organizations will have suffered data center outages that last more than four hours, which can result in significant financial losses for any business operation.
The costs associated with data center downtime include loss of revenue (from interrupting service), brand damage, legal liability, regulatory fines, and lost productivity from employees who cannot work until systems are restored. Companies incur these expenses whether they suffer an outage that affects the entire system or if they experience localized outages in specific parts of the network infrastructure.
The average cost of data center downtime is $10,000 per minute for each affected business unit and between $1 million and $2 million per hour for each multi-hour outage event. The cost of downtime in 2022 has increased by $1000 per minute from 2021, which is $9000 per minute.
This is why companies should consider using data centers in Indonesia. The best way to reduce costs is by using a cloud backup or Backup as a Service, so if downtime occurs, you can fail over to DRC.
How to Prevent Downtime?
Data center operators are always looking for ways to lower their expenses, and downtime is a considerable expense. It’s one of the most significant expenses in today’s data centers. If you think about it, there are dozens of things to consider when it comes to reducing downtime. The process can seem overwhelming, so it’s essential to start small and work your way up from there.
The first step is to find a provider who offers backup services. A trusted provider will be able to monitor your system for any issues that could lead to downtime and prevent those issues from occurring. Several factors can cause downtime, even some that your team might not realize are an issue.
For instance, improper power settings or a power surge may cause damage that could lead to data loss or hardware failure. That’s why it’s also essential to ensure your backup provider can handle all potential issues that could cause downtime.
Conclusion
A study by The Aberdeen Group also showed that companies lose more than $1.4 trillion in revenue each year because of unplanned outages and business disruptions. The Aberdeen Group research also revealed that companies with higher levels of IT maturity have a greater focus on event management and a lower likelihood of experiencing financial impacts from unplanned events or “disruptions.”
The bottom line is that you don’t want your business to experience downtime or disruption. You want your IT system to be secure and stable, so your employees can use your infrastructure to do their jobs effectively and efficiently. You’ll save money by reducing downtime because you won’t have to deal with lost productivity and maintaining redundant systems for redundancy’s sake.
With the accelerating expansion of data centers, it is essential to estimate the cost of downtime. In the last two years, data center downtime has increased by 29%, which is a considerable increase. If you’re not currently using a system that can track your data center downtime, you’re losing hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.
According to a recent study, the average cost of data center downtime per minute is $8,000. In 2021, the expected cost of downtime was $9,000 per minute. These numbers could be even higher in 2023.
Read also: Creating an Efficient Data Center Using The Best Technology