The only predictable thing about an “unanticipated outage” of information technlogy resources is that one will happen. There is no proven algorithm predicting the where, when or how an outage or even disaster will occur, but not being prepared for the inevitable situation is really not an option for organizations that rely on information technology to support their business objectives. Whether it is the local power company performing unscheduled maintenance, a broken water pipe overflowing the data center, or a malware attack through the webserver, organizations must be able to react quickly to avoid potential losses of revenue, customers, and reputation.

The Standish Group indicated, “Even 60 seconds of downtime of a single critical application can cost an enterprise thousands of dollars.”  They compiled the following numbers that may or may not surprise you.

Cost of Downtime – Per Minute for a Trading(Securities) application = $73,000; Enterprise Resource Planning application = $14,800; Order Processing application = $13,300; eCommerce application = $12,600; Supply Chain = $11,500; Electronic Funds Transfer = $6,200; Point of Sale = $4,700 and lastly Email  =  $1,900.

Depending on your organizational needs Vantage can guide you down the appropriate solution path.  Some organizations choose to roll-out High Availability first and then add Disaster Recovery.  But all would agree you need to do something.