Unconcerned about network outages? You might want to be.
Based on the 2016 Ponemon Institute’s annual report, The range of cost for network outages is between $137 and $17,244 per minute. Regardless of the size of your company, network outages affects an organization’s bottom line. What is the plan to prevent outages and their costs to your company?
Network Downtime: A Definition
A network is the servers, workstations, phones, wireless access points, printers and other devices in your company that all communicate over wired and wireless connections.
Downtime is when that network or any part of it fails. From a limited to a few systems, or it can encompass the entire environment. Either way, downtime is the time that users are unable to perform their jobs due to resources being unavailable.
Down Time: Can It Be Prevented?
No system is foolproof. We can never prevent 100% of failures but, as long as we plan ahead, we can rapidly address the ones we cannot stop.
- Create a Disaster Recovery Plan. This is critical for making sure that everyone knows what they are supposed to do and who they are supposed to contact based upon the nature of the outage. In many cases it will simply be that someone at the company contacts the Managed Service Provider and it executes from there.
If your MSP is the central point for resolution, make sure that all vendors (ISP, VOIP provider, power company, ect.) have a notation in their records that it’s OK for them to communicate with your MSP about your account.
If you are a primary services provider like a blood bank or doctor’s office, be sure that you are on every utility’s priority restore list.
- Let your IT Department or MSP Assist with Business Plans that Involve Your Network
Engage with your own team. Your managed service provider should not be there just to keep computers working; use them to help solve business challenges. If you use an MSP, do they offer a Virtual Chief Information Officer service? A vCIO serves as an advisor to help your company make good use of its IT dollars.
- Proactive Monitoring
Probably the biggest step you can take in avoiding network downtime is to consistently monitor the health of your network. Using alerts and self-healing systems, you can address many issues before they become outages.
- Consider a Managed Service Provider for your IT needs.
The biggest advantage that a Managed Services Provider brings to the table is that you have access to an entire team of experts. Even when you have a technician on staff, having an MSP to back stop that person or team is just another tool in your belt for preventing or mitigating network outages.
- Make sure your data is safe.
Offsite backups are critical to recovery. Make sure that your IT department or MSP are not only backing up data offsite but that they are testing the integrity of those backups regularly. There is little worse than believing you are protected only to find that the protection hasn’t been working when you need it most.
Finally, here is a quick method for calculating the cost of downtime to your organization: Downtime Cost = Productivity Cost + Revenue Loss. Productivity loss is a combination of wages paid, utilities used, and other costs associated with running your business during the outage. Revenue loss is straightforward. It’s an extremely simplified look at the cost but it should make the point.
Any questions? Feel free to contact Gnosys Networks at info@gnosysnetworks or 352.870.2034 and schedule a free, no obligation network analysis.