How to deal with the nightmare of network outage

Reducing network outages is becoming an increasingly critical area of ​​concern for businesses. Today, we live in an era where always-on network availability is required. Even a minute of downtime in a mission-critical application can cost a business a fortune and ruin their brand reputation.

A Gartner report back in 2014 stated that “one minute of IT downtime costs $5,600.” Since then, enterprise IT infrastructure has continued to grow more complex, with nearly all businesses relying on critical digital infrastructure. How much downtime a company will spend depends on the severity of the impact on critical systems and how effectively the business can operate without them.

Numerous studies have been conducted to estimate the cost of downtime for businesses. According to a 2021 report from Veeam, the estimated average financial impact of a one-hour IT outage is $85,000. Research published by TechChannel suggests that for almost half of businesses, the cost of downtime is more than $1 million per hour, at least during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data compiled by Statista supports the latter claim.

With a little planning and strategic investment in uptime-enhancing measures, businesses can protect themselves from these unnecessary costs and, more importantly, retain their valued customers and brand reputation.

Three key steps to reduce network outages

There are three basic steps that, if followed carefully, can help significantly reduce network downtime and minimize the impact when a network outage occurs.

1. Regular server backup

The obvious benefit of backing up your data is minimizing data loss. Backing up your server also allows the data center team to quickly restart it before it damages other critical systems. The 3-2-1 backup rule should always be kept in mind: keep 3 copies of your data; store 2 copies on different/separate storage media; and store 1 copy in a secure offsite location.

It’s also good practice to test these regularly to ensure everything goes as planned in a real crisis situation.

2. 24/7 network monitoring

Network outages most often present early warning signs that can be detected by data center experts, allowing them to initiate an effective response before a full-blown outage occurs. But this requires 24/7 monitoring, which is beyond the scope of traditional network monitoring. There are smart monitoring systems available that can effectively conduct this level of monitoring.

3. Make redundancy your friend

No matter how well prepared you are, a natural disaster or other uncontrollable event that could cause your network to be disrupted should never be left unchecked. Preparing for such an event requires three basic steps:

• Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS): This needs to be the first line of defense. In the event of an uncontrollable disaster, the UPS will protect critical hardware and manage uptime until the generators can restart.
• Multiple Internet connections with automatic failover: A second service provider should be hired as a backup bandwidth provider who can provide enough bandwidth to keep your operations running smoothly.
• Hosting servers: While small businesses can rely on cloud storage, most businesses require a full server hosting that is powerful enough to handle all of their business needs. These servers also need to be regularly tested and maintained to ensure they are ready for the challenge when needed.

In summary

Even if all necessary precautions are taken, it may become exhausting for the internal IT team to handle all the required inspections and maintenance. A reasonable approach is to hand over end-to-end management to a professional global data center and network optimization partner, freeing up the enterprise IT team to focus on more strategic work. A trusted professional partner can ensure that every step is perfectly planned and executed.