IT Employment

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.....

You have a perception issue.


James

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!

Minimizing downtime keeps me employed.

it's a perception issue.
and this is actually pandemic.
not just in one shop.

the manager for my residence was offline for 15 minutes the other day.
his comment:
I couldn't get online all night.

it's the "appliance" mindset that creates this perception. as long as computers are appliances, any downtime, for any reason will be seen as huge.

They don't notice when it is working.