Data center outages can wreak havoc on businesses, but they could at least become less common, according to a report from the Uptime Institute.
In 2022, 60% of data center operators surveyed said they had experienced an outage in the last three years, compared to 69% in 2021 and 78% in 2020.
Additionally, outages in the "serious or severe" categories have dropped to 14% by 2022, or just one in six who have had an outage in the past three years.
What else has changed?
However, it's not all sunshine and rainbows in the world of data centers, as research shows these outages are getting more and more costly.
When asked about the cost of their last outage, a quarter of Uptime Institute respondents said the outage cost more than €1 million in direct and indirect costs, a significant increase from 2021.
45% of respondents said their last breakdown cost between €100 and €000 million, with more than two-thirds of all breakdowns costing more than €1.
Why is the cost of breakdowns increasing?
The Uptime Institute attributed the increase to a variety of factors, ranging from inflation, fines, breaches of service level agreements, and the cost of labor, calls and replacement parts.
However, the study highlighted that the main reason for this increase is the increasing reliance of business economic activity on cloud storage, as the loss of a critical IT service "often translates directly and immediately into interruption of service." business and loss of income.
According to research, on-site power issues continue to be the leading cause of significant on-site outages, accounting for 44% of all reported outages.
This is well above the second largest causes of outages, IT systems and cooling, which each account for 13% respectively.