What is Uptime and what is it like in the data center and in the office?

What is Uptime and why is it important?

Uptime is a measure of the reliability of an IT system. It is the percentage of time the system is available and operating without interruptions. The higher the percentage, the less frequent the interruptions in the operation of systems and processes. For business, this is critical, because even minutes of downtime can mean lost revenue, dissatisfied customers, or chaos in internal processes.

How is Uptime measured and why isn’t 99% enough?

Uptime is usually indicated and measured in percentages, which, however, can mislead users about the availability guaranteed by providers. The difference between 99%, 99.9%, and 99.99% may seem small at first glance, but in real hours it is huge:

• 99% Uptime means permissible downtime of over 7 hours per month and more than 3 and a half days per year
• 99.9% Uptime means permissible downtime of about 43 minutes per month or under 9 hours per year
• 99.99% Uptime means permissible downtime of about 4 minutes per month or a total of 52 minutes per year

See also: As a TIER III class data center, AC☁DC guarantees 99.982% service availability

Possible uptime for an office server environment

When business servers are located in the office, the achievable uptime is highly limited and depends on certain risks:

• In case of power surges or grid maintenance, the system is left without power.
• Usually there is one UPS and it often provides operation for a limited time only.
• The air conditioner is often just one and is not connected to generators
• Usually there are no generators, or they do not have automatic start and preheating.
• The Internet connection is not redundant.
• Usually there is no fire suppression system
• No 24/7 monitoring.

Many companies neglect all these risks or try to prevent them, which, however, means huge investments and unprofitability. In the end, the achievable uptime in the office is about 99%, and this doesn’t even account for all the possible consequences and additional risks from incidents and disasters, against which it’s hard to protect your equipment in an office environment. So, is the risk of completely stopping your operations for at least 3 days a year acceptable for your business?  

Uptime in a data center

Data centers are designed to ensure continuous operation of server equipment even in situations you simply can’t protect against in an office environment. Professional data center service will provide your business with:

• Redundant power supplies and UPSs.
• Diesel generators with preheating and automatic start.
• Several independent Internet connections and fiber routes.
• Cooling, fire detection, fire suppression, and physical security systems.
• 24/7 monitoring and response team.

Thanks to this, high-class data centers offer Uptime guarantees (via SLA) of over 99.9%. This means that instead of days of downtime per year, we’re talking about hours or even minutes, and only in rare, isolated cases. 

That’s why colocation of server equipment in a data center of at least Tier III should be seen as an investment by businesses that want to guarantee themselves a competitive advantage, peace of mind, customer trust, and prevention against unforeseen situations, additional costs, and lost opportunities. 

At AC☁DC, our clients benefit from all these advantages, as well as additional extras that make the servicing and maintenance of their server equipment easy and accessible. 

If you still keep your servers in the office, contact our team to learn more about the advantages of our services, our offers for startups, small and large businesses in the Varna region, as well as for those from Western Bulgaria who need a reliable disaster recovery location. 

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