Network downtime – no one likes it as it points to just how much we rely on network access to get our work done. Yet at the same time, outages tend to be frequent. In a world where web-scale networking should be the primary focus for improvements, network performance is lacking. In one survey, results revealed hours passing before issues were reported and resolved – enough to put a company out of business.
According to a recent Network World (News - Alert) post, the survey was sponsored by Veriflow, a startup focused on minimizing the risk of network vulnerabilities and outages. The company’s survey also determined that nearly all respondents agree that human error is a cause of network outages. How much of a factor is where the answers tend to vary. A few network outages were blamed on human error 52 percent of the time, while frequent contributors were reported 25 percent of the time.
Another common cause of incidents, according to the survey includes changes to the network that were not properly evaluated. The impact on the business can vary, although 5 percent did report that these changes lead to performance issues or outages on a daily basis, while 44 percent reported the changes that this kind of impact several times a year. And with a process that tends to include a manual approach to determine whether or not the network is functioning properly, human error and changes can have an even bigger impact on performance.
In the web-scale networking world, there are a number of tools available, yet also room for improvement. Only 6 percent of respondents rely on their network monitoring tools to actually report between 90 and 100 percent of their network performance issues and outages. Too many respondents reported that their monitoring tools predict less than half of all network issues, leaving some to wonder why they are in place at all.
Resolution time is also a critical concern as once an issue is identified, it’s important that it’s taken care of before it becomes a bigger problem. For 21 percent, they’re taking less than an hour to resolve web-scale networking problems. Everyone else is facing more time, which is money impacting the bottom line for every minute the network is down.
The reality is, we can’t afford downtime, especially when it’s unnecessary and unchecked. And according to this survey, there’s a lot of work to be done in these environments. As long as web-scale networking is a priority, monitoring tools and processes for staying online will have to improve.
Edited by Maurice Nagle