Whether your customers are individuals or big corporations, a system outage, or an IT disaster causing downtime, will have a knock-on effect.
For this reason, limiting downtime is often cited as one of the top priorities for C-level IT personnel whether through minimising the risk or maximising the overall effect of business continuity strategies.
At ClearYolk we simplify data protection and enable stream-lined recoveries to enable users to get back online sooner, limiting downtime and the knock-on effects to customers and users.
What Is Downtime?
Downtime can be defined as the amount of time in which a computer, network or system is not functional due to hardware or software issues.
The directly negative effects of downtime can be calculated as the cost of downtime. For smaller organisations, it is more likely that downtime will have a lower cost whereas enterprise organisations may see downtime cost tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds. Gartner has previously calculated the average cost of IT downtime at $5,600 per minute.
Causes of IT Downtime
Ransomware
Ransomware and malware attacks are one of the most high-profile causes of downtime, especially in recent months where targeted attacks on global organisations have led to large ransoms being paid.
In a cyber-attack or ransomware instance, the downtime will be the length of time between the infection taking hold and IT staff being able to regain access to their systems. This could be done through paying the ransom, something that the National Cyber Security Centre strongly advises against, or by recovering data with a secure air-gapped backup and recovery solution.
Software failure
With so many modern businesses relying heavily on systems, a software failure can be an incredibly disruptive cause of downtime.
In recent years there have been major software failures at airports, with mobile network providers and even with banking software, all affecting thousands of people.
Software failures can be caused by several
things, but commonly they include implementations that have gone wrong or updates that have introduced errors into systems.
Hardware Failure
Another common cause of IT downtime is network or server hardware failure. When the hardware that hosts applications, data or resources fails, the effect on downtime can be significant.
It may be a simple fix, but in some cases, this may not be possible and an entirely new hardware may be required. In this instance, downtime may last days or even weeks unless an alternate platform can be found.
A physical hardware failure may be further compounded if the applications and data stored on them have not been backed up and cannot be recovered.
How Will Downtime Affect Your Customers?
For customers, confidence in their providers is vital. Not only can regular downtime affect delivery times, levels of service, or the ability to place orders but it also carries a level of reputational damage.
It’s important to be able to demonstrate a reliable and tested business continuity plan. Limiting downtime will help build trust between old and new customers, saving companies money, and even help you beat the competition.
Make downtime a thing of the past with steamed recoveries and instant access with ClearYolks data backup scenario.
How Can ClearYolk Help You Limit Downtime?
ClearYolk ensures that your systems and data are protected from a single application. You can access your data at the click of a button, whether you are streaming to new hardware or cloud, such as Azure.
And thanks to our InstantDataTM technology, you can now test a downtime scenario and be confident in your ability to access data rapidly without the expensive costs other solutions often have for disaster recovery testing.
Get in touch with one of our experts today to find out more!
