The Always-on Network - Strategies for achieving high availability of IT systems
ABSTRACT
Managing the availability of mission critical systems requires an understanding of the risks and costs of losing access to business critical information or services balanced against the cost of achieving a
certain level of availability.
FULL DOCUMENT
Managing the availability of mission critical systems requires an understanding of the risks and costs of losing access to business critical information or services balanced against the cost of achieving a
certain level of availability.
That balance is shifting toward higher levels of availability as network services becomes essential to business continuity and the cost of downtime escalates.as A February 2004 study by Infonetics
Research revealed that interruptions in enterprise availability cost large companies an average of 3.6 percent of annual revenues.
As a result, IT managers face growing pressure to drive network availability to unprecedented levels. At the same time, Voice over Internet Protocol, radio frequency identification, just-in-time
inventory, lean manufacturing and point-of-sale integration are placing new demands on networks – and the systems that support them.
This pressure is not limited to the data center. For an increasing number of organizations, the network itself is mission critical. It may not always be possible for remote systems to achieve the
same levels of availability as those in the data center, but the gap can be closed by applying the strategies and technologies used in the data center to systems outside it.
According to the Uptime Institute, 25 percent of all information downtime results from the interaction of computer hardware with its physical environment.