Technology is essential to keep your business running, so when you have an IT outage, it can be costly in more ways than one. With lost productivity, data loss, revenue loss, and the cost of recovery, IT downtime can cost over $5,600 per minute! Fortunately, there are steps you can take to minimize IT downtime and its effect on your business.

"IT downtime can cost over $5,600 per minute." - Gartner

What Causes Downtime?

IT downtime can be caused by a variety of things, including:

• Human error. Human error is one of the top causes of IT downtime, including both accidents and negligence.
• Old hardware. Older equipment is more likely to fail, but also less likely to be able to handle the newer and more complex applications you need for your business to run.
• Software failure and viruses. By not keeping your software up-to-date, malware and viruses can infiltrate your system, risking a major IT outage.
• Misconfiguration. If your devices aren't configured correctly, both hardware and software, they are not going to work properly and can take down your network in the process.
• Environmental issues and other disasters. Whether it's a severe storm or a fire, your business may not be able to function in the aftermath.

How to Minimize Downtime

While IT downtime may be unavoidable in some cases, there are steps you can take to mitigate its effects on your business.

• Be sure you have your servers backed up regularly, and test these backups to be sure you can access them and use them to restore your data. If your server goes down, these backups can help you get up and running again quickly, with minimal data loss.
• Regularly update your software, including security patches and other updates. This helps keep your systems running smoothly and helps minimize the chance of a virus or other software failure.
• Monitor your devices carefully and regularly, looking for signs of age or wear. These can include systems that randomly reboot themselves, or high CPU or memory usage. Network monitoring software can alert you to these changes so you can repair or upgrade before disaster strikes.

By taking some simple steps to minimize both downtime and its effects, you'll be saving your company time and money.

Need help to reduce your IT downtime? DSI’s experts are ready to help you implement next-generation network infrastructure, disaster recovery, and workforce solutions to make sure your business keeps running smoothly.