Data Center Downtime Disconnect

Data centers are the lifeblood of any IT organization's existence. And yet, most companies still falter when it comes to keeping unplanned outages at bay. A recent study conducted by the Ponemon Institute found that 95 percent of organizations have experienced an unplanned data center outage in the past two years, and more disconcertingly, senior level managers are unaware that these events are happening or the extent of damage that they can cause. “When you consider that downtime can potentially cost data centers thousands of dollars per minute, our survey shows a serious disconnect between senior-level employees and those in the data center trenches,” said Larry Ponemon, founder of the Ponemon Institute. “This sets up a challenge for data center management to justify to senior leadership the need to implement data center systems and best practices that increase availability and ensure the functioning of mission-critical applications. It’s imperative that these two groups be on the same page in terms of the severity of the problem and potential solutions.” The following are Ponemon's findings, which examined responses from more than 450 U.S.-based IT pros involved in data center operations, as well as upper level managers overseeing these pros.