Uptime Is King
When it comes to IT services, uptime is king. The gold standard in the industry is often referred to as “five nines,” meaning 99.999% availability. However, achieving and maintaining this level of service is not always guaranteed by all providers. Over the course of a year, the actual uptime offered by many can result in significantly more downtime than customers might expect.
For instance, an SLA promising 99% uptime might sound decent, but in reality, this allows for nearly 88 hours of downtime annually—well within the contractual boundaries. To put this into perspective:
99%
87 Hours 40 Minutes
Tolerated Downtime Annually
99.9%
8 Hours 46 Minutes
Tolerated Downtime Annually
99.99%
52 Minutes 36 Seconds
Tolerated Downtime Annually
99.999%
5 Minutes 16 Seconds
Tolerated Downtime Annually
99.9999%
31.6 Seconds
Tolerated Downtime Annually
Navigating The Uptime Market
The differences in uptime guarantees can be substantial. For example, a jump from 99% to 99.9% uptime significantly slashes permissible downtime. Without seeing these figures laid out, the gaps might not seem so profound. It’s crucial to ask: does the uptime promised by your service provider align with your operational needs?
Exploring the market further, Amazon Web Services offers a sliding scale of service credits depending on uptime: 10% credit for less than 99.95% uptime and 30% for uptime falling below 99%. Microsoft Azure has a similar structure, with 10% credit for less than 99.95% and 25% for less than 99%. Meanwhile, Salesforce boasts a reliable uptime of over 99.9% but might not formalize this in an SLA.
These details underscore the importance of understanding the fine print in your provider’s SLA, ensuring that the level of uptime guaranteed matches your expectations and business requirements. Keep in mind, both parties have their own agendas. Users seek a reliable service, while providers aim to validate their charges. Pay close attention to your SLA. Stay alert and proactive. After all, it’s your business on the line.
Downtime Costs & Consequences Worsening
The proportion of outages costing over $100,000 has soared in recent years. Over 60% of failures result in at least $100,000 in total losses, up substantially from 39% in 2019. The share of outages that cost upwards of $1 million increased from 11% to 15% over that same period.
Reliability Is Not Free
Any complex system is composed of multiple subsystems. But how does one go about calculating the total SLA of the system based on the SLO of individual subsystems?
