I would like to find out some different amount of down times due to software problems. In other words, on the average, how often does a main network wide software crash and what is the average down time for that software?
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I've seen simple systems that went years without crashing -exceeding my time with the company.
I have seen complex systems that crashed due to external problems - viruses or configuration issues - but not due to the inherent stability or lack thereof.
Ok. The reason I'm asking is that we do have a particular software that, due to an Integration process, gets "locked up" and causes the program to not respond for the users. Once I restart the integration it usually comes back up and perks along. Probably in the two years we have had this program it's done this maybe 4 or 5 times. Usually, it only takes about 10 - 15 minutes to get it back up. However, on two occasions due to having to rebuild the database it has taken about two hours. Whenever it does happen, though, I get this "It never works right" from several users. I was just wondering if we are about in line with most companies or if this is a "never works right" scene.
If we say that the software must be available 9-5 5 days a week, we get 40 hours of availability a week x 104 weeks =4160 hours. If you lost a total of 4.5 hours(2x 2 hours, 2 x .25 hours), lets calculate the percentage of downtime. My calculation says that your system is down .11% of the time. Thats pretty close to a realistic goal of 99.9 uptime. Many large corporations who sell their services to others go for 5 nines - 99.999. Thats difficult to achieve.
On the other hand, where I work the mail system goes down about once a year for an hour.....
And as an IT professional involved in troubleshooting and technical support, it's this 'downtime' - both software and hardware that keeps me gainfully employed.
Downtime can be a good thing - it makes us techies look needed!
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Software down time.