Think about this, you’re watching a mind-blowing thriller at home and the climax is about to come on. The Rogue Cop is finally going to reveal the true identity of the serial killer to his reluctant team. He opens his mouth, you’re at the edge off your seat and the power goes out. Imagine the amount of irritation and annoyance you will feel at that moment and remember you are not even dealing with money of millions of dollars worth of data.

Now imagine what will happen if you lose power or the system fails during an important save- the-world kind of transaction. In a nutshell, you will lose valuable data, money and then some. This situation when the system is unavailable, it’s called Downtime.

Downtime is the IT department’s worst nightmare. This is something which gets in the way even after best plans and preparations for every circumstance are considered and implemented. Because of this, even your best laid plans sometimes prove to be futile and the errors escalate into serious events leaving you with mile long bills and a head with shortage of hair.

It’s time to dwell in to the waters of Downtime. Let us look into the reasons and solutions for downtime. This will give you a clear picture about downtimes and how to deal with them.

•  During relocation—this is unavoidable but it’s important to know how much downtime is acceptable in these cases. After working day and night, analysts found out some practices which would reduce your downtime to almost none.

o   Get consultation to discuss your plans, options, resources, areas for improvements etc. This is going to help you steer clear of the surprise glitches which are more than capable of giving you a migraine.

o   Don’t think about upgrading yet. You will face problems as it is. The last thing you want is more time to configure the upgraded systems and increasing your downtime.

o   Test your network to see and check if it is compatible with the equipments. When this is done meticulously, you will reduce your downtime by 15%.

• During a power outage—This is a notorious event. It makes the company lose its competitive edge and if it’s recurrent, you will end up losing your clients. Here is what you can do:

o   Most companies have a backup system which takes charge during events as this. They work to preserve and recover data lost during the outage. In the business world, time means money, literally. This is why it is advised to the companies to employ good facilities with exceptional computing programs for all the equipments of the data center to mitigate the effects of the power failure.

•  During equipment failure– Here you were sitting in your office playing Solitaire when your floor engineer calls you and tells you that a few systems broke down in sector 4 of your data center. This is a dire situation. Times like this have a plan ready which can address the condition and provide solutions as per requirements.

o   Keeping a report of all the equipment and all the systems in your data center will help you pin-point the error. Documentation is an exhaustive process but look at the bigger picture. Do you want to save a few months’ worth of time to avoid documentation or lose couple of millions worth of data and capital?

More than financial losses, there is also a chance of tainted reputation which is very difficult to get back. The best thing you can do here is communicate. Train people to deal with angry or disappointed customers. The right way to do this is diplomatically and efficiently. If done right, it can assist you in maintaining a healthy relationship with your customers.

It’s always wise to remember that you are going to fall short in some way or the other when events for downtime take place. The best thing you can do is plan well. A good plan will make sure that you have a solution ready at the moment’s notice when there is some kind of failure. A best laid plan will ensure that the infrastructure that can handle outages. The more prepared you are, the better an entire network environment can handle downtime or an outage.

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