Data Center Outages Cost More Than $5,000 per Minute: Emerson Study

A new study from Emerson Network Power (News - Alert), a provider of business critical continuity solution, and Ponemon Institute, a research center focused on privacy, data protection and information security policy, finds that unplanned data center outages can cost companies more than $5,000 a minute in lost revenue and productivity, damaged data and stakeholder trust, and regulatory and legal repercussions.

Ninety five percent of U.S. businesses have experienced at least one unplanned data center outage in the past two years. Most data center professionals say inadequate practices and investments are hindering the prevention of or response time to outages.

The findings are based on the survey conducted on more than 450 U.S.-based data center professionals and an in-depth analysis of 41 independent data centers from varying industry segments with a minimum of 2,500 square feet.

The report analyzes the direct, indirect and opportunity costs of data center outages. According to the survey, a total data center outage, with an average recovery time of 134 minutes, can cost an organization approximately $680,000.

“With the increase in reliance on IT systems to support business-critical applications, a single downtime event now has the potential to significantly impact the profitability – and in extreme cases, the viability – of an enterprise,” said Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute (News - Alert), in a statement.

“Left unattended, an inadequate data center infrastructure will contribute to recurring downtime events and result in significant financial losses as well as permanent damage to a company’s reputation and customer goodwill,” Ponemon added.

For telecommunications service providers and e-commerce companies, whose revenue models depend solely on data centers to deliver IT and networking services, the highest cost of a single event can top $1 million (more than $11,000 per minute), according to the study.

The survey also found that a lack of resources kept data center professionals from reducing or responding to outages as they would have liked. For 57 percent of the respondents, all or most of their unplanned outages could have been prevented. Only 37 percent agree there are ample resources to bring their data center up and running if there is an unplanned outage.

According to Peter Panfil, vice president and general manager, Emerson Network Power’s AC Power business in North America, downtime can result in a variety of long-term recurring costs, which include direct costs associated with identifying and addressing root causes and indirect costs associated with disrupting business-critical operations.

“While minimizing the risk of outages may necessitate an up-front capital investment, those investments can be offset by lower downtime costs and savings from increased operational efficiencies,” Panfil added.

Emerson Network Power provides innovative solutions and expertise in areas including AC and DC power and precision cooling systems, embedded computing and power, integrated racks and enclosures, power switching and controls, infrastructure management, and connectivity.

Recently Emerson Network Power introduced Smart Solutions, a family of intelligent, integrated infrastructure systems for the data center, which enable cost-effective management of capacity, efficiency and availability through interoperable systems configured to speed implementation, adapt to change and reduce costs.