Making sense of the outage numbers

In recent years, Uptime Institute has published regular reports examining both the rate and causes of data center and IT service outages. The reports, which have been widely read and reported in the media, paint a picture of an industry that is struggling with resiliency and reliability — and one where operators regularly suffer downtime, disruption, and reputational and financial damage.

Is this a fair picture? Rather like the authors of a scientific paper whose findings from a small experiment are hailed as a major breakthrough, Uptime Institute Intelligence has often felt a certain unease when the results of these complex findings, pulled from an ever changing and complex environment, are distilled into sound bites and headlines.