In the fast-paced world of business, there is no time for downtime. Practically everyone is almost always online, expecting to receive the same level of service whether they transact during peak or off-peak hours. The data should always be correct and always available, even in the event of network interruptions, software bugs, calamities, or human error. Staying at 100 percent operational capacity is, of course, an impossible feat to achieve. Still, with the help of a high availability infrastructure, your business can come close to 99.995 to 99.999 percent availability.
With this definition, it is clear why a company needs such a software infrastructure. After all, no one wants to lose their data, no matter how small it may be. Here are more reasons why you should invest in a high availability solution.
It Will Reduce the Cost of Downtime
Downtimes can cost your company more than irate customers (although it can be said that reputational damage can cost you even more). According to a report from Stratus, downtimes can cost medium-sized organizations an average of $215,637 per hour. Investing in a high availability infrastructure is cheaper than this amount, considering that you face not only financial losses when you experience hardware failures, undergo a system update or maintenance, or have to migrate your data, which are the most common causes of system downtimes.
- This is not to mention that with a high availability infrastructure in place, your personnel’s productivity is hardly affected whenever undesirable or unavoidable scenarios occur.
It is Good for Your Reputation
As earlier mentioned, downtimes can result in reputational damage to your company, even if the duration is just for a minute or two. This is especially evident in the industry of banking and finance, where even a few seconds can spell the difference between huge gains and losses. Such high stakes require solutions that ensure not just the availability but also the correctness of data 24/7. In case something happens, your customers will still have access to the data they want or need, or will only have to wait for shorter periods, during which you can deploy your customer relationship strategies to manage the situation.
It Makes Disaster Recovery Easier
If a failure occurs, whether it’s caused by technological or human errors, having a high availability solution in place makes it easier to recover and restore whatever may have been lost or damaged, like data, processes, architecture, and applications. This is because high availability software eliminates single points of failure (the failure of one component does not equate to the failure of the entire system), provides reliable crossover points, and detects failures in the system as they occur and not after the fact when it has already affected a number of your customers.
It Allows You to Manage Downtimes Better
There are some situations that you cannot control, like hardware and software problems and environmental disasters, that lead to downtimes. However, there are situations when downtimes are required, over which you have control. These include regular database backups or the deployment of new equipment, or software. With the help of high availability solutions, you can minimize the impact of these planned “outages” ononour customers.
Technology has made everything available to customers at any given time, and they have grown used to this convenience. Businesses have no choice but to adapt. Thanks to high-availability software solutions, organizations can cater to this need and more, with minimal losses and risks involved.
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