Impact of Downtime.

 Downtime must be considered from a number of aspects.

-         System outage time.

-         System/business recovery time.

o   Reputational integrity – directly affects share price.

o   Cost of customer loyalty

o   Potential gain for competition.

-         For financial services companies, other key considerations could include regulatory requirements

-         By understanding the total time lost to unscheduled downtime (outage + Recovery) x the total cost/hr to the business by not having system availability, the business shout be able to determine the level of redundancy required to support the business needs.

-         The potential losses incurred as a result of downtime must be balanced against the additional costs associated with higher levels of availability.

-         Fines imposed by regulatory authorities for late submissions of reports.

-         Penalties imposed for a lack of up to date trading information.

-         Can result in substantial financial loss due to inability to trade.

Business Needs Assessment.

-         How dependent is the business on the data center

-         What physical size/space is required

o   Now

o   Later

o   Ultimately

-         What level of availability is expected.

o   Variable?

-         What is the impact of downtime on the business in $

-         What can the business afford in $

-         What already exist, what other facilities could be utilized.

Three main are need to be considered:

1.       Available time for planned maintenance

-          Determined by type of business, workload and redundancy level

2.      Acceptable amount of time for unplanned outage

-          Determined by level of dependence of the business on the availability of the data center

3.      Overall impact of unscheduled outage on business performance

-          The effect of 2. Above on the business as a whole in terms of lost revenue, damage to reputation, exploitation of opportunity by competitors.

Important notes to be considered.

-         The choice of the most appropriate Data Center availability level for the business is a C class decision.

-         TCO and ROI must be fully understood.

-         The facility design must meet the business availability requirement.

-         All options must be explored.