IT Downtime Increases During Pandemic

Learn more about LogicMonitor

IT downtime, which includes both brownouts and outages, has increased during the pandemic, according to a study by LogicMonitor.

In addition, the study found that previously siloed IT teams and technologies are converging as enterprises accelerate their modernization efforts in reaction to COVID-19. The responsibilities of CIOs are expanding and the roles of traditional IT operations and administration teams are moving closer and closer to those of agile application developers and quality and security engineers as business priorities shift to align with the customer and their digital experience.

The study findings include:

■ 79% of global CIOs and CTOs feel that their input and importance within the boardroom has increased in the last 12 months (86% of CIOs/CTOs based in North America feel that way; 78% based in EMEA; 74% based in APAC).

■ The vast majority of global enterprises (93%) have seen some level of convergence between traditional IT operations and administration teams and development teams in the last 12 months.

■ 94% of those respondents credit the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic with accelerating this convergence.

■ 21% of global IT leaders believe that improved security will be the top benefit resulting from convergence between ITOps and DevOps; followed by greater ability to scale (16%); better cross-org collaboration/alignment (14%); reduction in outages/brownouts (12%); and better customer experience (11%).

"One of the key benefits of the convergence between ITOps and DevOps is that such a synergy makes it increasingly feasible to achieve true unified IT observability within modern enterprises," said Christina Kosmowski, President of LogicMonitor. "As our research shows, observability is all about gaining full visibility into the health, performance and availability of an organization’s IT stack. Companies who achieve unified observability will find it far easier to complete their digital transformation initiatives and succeed in today’s digital economy ...”

Enterprises Prioritize Data Security, Cloud and IT Automation in Today's Era of Remote Work

Many IT leaders are changing the way they invest in various IT initiatives as digital transformation accelerates due to COVID-19 and the rise of remote work.

■ In 2020, 73% of global IT leaders substantially increased their investments in data security; 71% substantially increased their investments in cloud technologies and services, and 68% substantially increased their investments in IT automation.

■ In 2020, 17% of global enterprises decreased their investments in on-premises technologies.

■ 11% of global enterprises say that expanding use of the cloud is their number one priority in 2021.

■ 75% of global IT leaders plan to increase investment in both data security and cloud technologies and services in the next 12-24 months; 71% of global IT leaders plan to increase investment in IT automation in the next 12-24 months.

IT Outages and Brownouts Remain Widespread

One negative IT trend that global businesses continue to experience at alarming rates — despite the severe negative business impact — is IT downtime, which includes both brownouts and outages. Global IT leaders identify remote work, the Internet of Things (IoT) and migration to the cloud as the top three trends contributing to widespread downtime, although respondents based in EMEA mention mobile computing as a key contributor, and respondents in APAC mention edge computing as a key contributor.


■ In the past three years, 97% of global IT leaders said their organization had experienced an IT brownout; 94% said their organization had experienced an outage.

■ 51% of IT leaders said they had seen an increase in IT downtime as a result of the pandemic since March 2020.

■ Respondents in North America were more likely to see an increase in downtime since the pandemic began (57%), compared to Europe (50%) and APAC (48%).

■ 7% of IT leaders admit to experiencing 50 or more brownouts and 50 or more outages in the last three years.

■ Enterprises experience an average of 15 IT outages every 3 years and 19 brownouts.

■ Lost productivity tops the list as the most negative impact IT leaders have experienced as a result of IT brownouts (66%) and outages (61%), followed by lost revenue (43% for brownouts and 42% for outages) and damage to brand/reputation (31% for brownouts and 32% for outages).

■ 16% of IT leaders say their organization was shut down permanently as a result of IT outages during the past three years.

As the world continues the rapid pace of digital transformation — made even more imperative by the ongoing pandemic — organizations cannot afford to experience downtime. By embracing the technologies that provide them with full observability into their IT infrastructure, organizations can mitigate the risk of downtime and quickly resolve issues when they do occur.

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IT Downtime Increases During Pandemic

Learn more about LogicMonitor

IT downtime, which includes both brownouts and outages, has increased during the pandemic, according to a study by LogicMonitor.

In addition, the study found that previously siloed IT teams and technologies are converging as enterprises accelerate their modernization efforts in reaction to COVID-19. The responsibilities of CIOs are expanding and the roles of traditional IT operations and administration teams are moving closer and closer to those of agile application developers and quality and security engineers as business priorities shift to align with the customer and their digital experience.

The study findings include:

■ 79% of global CIOs and CTOs feel that their input and importance within the boardroom has increased in the last 12 months (86% of CIOs/CTOs based in North America feel that way; 78% based in EMEA; 74% based in APAC).

■ The vast majority of global enterprises (93%) have seen some level of convergence between traditional IT operations and administration teams and development teams in the last 12 months.

■ 94% of those respondents credit the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic with accelerating this convergence.

■ 21% of global IT leaders believe that improved security will be the top benefit resulting from convergence between ITOps and DevOps; followed by greater ability to scale (16%); better cross-org collaboration/alignment (14%); reduction in outages/brownouts (12%); and better customer experience (11%).

"One of the key benefits of the convergence between ITOps and DevOps is that such a synergy makes it increasingly feasible to achieve true unified IT observability within modern enterprises," said Christina Kosmowski, President of LogicMonitor. "As our research shows, observability is all about gaining full visibility into the health, performance and availability of an organization’s IT stack. Companies who achieve unified observability will find it far easier to complete their digital transformation initiatives and succeed in today’s digital economy ...”

Enterprises Prioritize Data Security, Cloud and IT Automation in Today's Era of Remote Work

Many IT leaders are changing the way they invest in various IT initiatives as digital transformation accelerates due to COVID-19 and the rise of remote work.

■ In 2020, 73% of global IT leaders substantially increased their investments in data security; 71% substantially increased their investments in cloud technologies and services, and 68% substantially increased their investments in IT automation.

■ In 2020, 17% of global enterprises decreased their investments in on-premises technologies.

■ 11% of global enterprises say that expanding use of the cloud is their number one priority in 2021.

■ 75% of global IT leaders plan to increase investment in both data security and cloud technologies and services in the next 12-24 months; 71% of global IT leaders plan to increase investment in IT automation in the next 12-24 months.

IT Outages and Brownouts Remain Widespread

One negative IT trend that global businesses continue to experience at alarming rates — despite the severe negative business impact — is IT downtime, which includes both brownouts and outages. Global IT leaders identify remote work, the Internet of Things (IoT) and migration to the cloud as the top three trends contributing to widespread downtime, although respondents based in EMEA mention mobile computing as a key contributor, and respondents in APAC mention edge computing as a key contributor.


■ In the past three years, 97% of global IT leaders said their organization had experienced an IT brownout; 94% said their organization had experienced an outage.

■ 51% of IT leaders said they had seen an increase in IT downtime as a result of the pandemic since March 2020.

■ Respondents in North America were more likely to see an increase in downtime since the pandemic began (57%), compared to Europe (50%) and APAC (48%).

■ 7% of IT leaders admit to experiencing 50 or more brownouts and 50 or more outages in the last three years.

■ Enterprises experience an average of 15 IT outages every 3 years and 19 brownouts.

■ Lost productivity tops the list as the most negative impact IT leaders have experienced as a result of IT brownouts (66%) and outages (61%), followed by lost revenue (43% for brownouts and 42% for outages) and damage to brand/reputation (31% for brownouts and 32% for outages).

■ 16% of IT leaders say their organization was shut down permanently as a result of IT outages during the past three years.

As the world continues the rapid pace of digital transformation — made even more imperative by the ongoing pandemic — organizations cannot afford to experience downtime. By embracing the technologies that provide them with full observability into their IT infrastructure, organizations can mitigate the risk of downtime and quickly resolve issues when they do occur.

Hot Topics

The Latest

Observability Costs Rising Faster Than Value

The gap is widening between what teams spend on observability tools and the value they receive amid surging data volumes and budget pressures, according to The Breaking Point for Observability Leaders, a report from Imply ...

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Seamless shopping is a basic demand of today's boundaryless consumer — one with little patience for friction, limited tolerance for disconnected experiences and minimal hesitation in switching brands. Customers expect intuitive, highly personalized experiences and the ability to move effortlessly across physical and digital channels within the same journey. Failure to deliver can cost dearly ...

IT's Motivation Crisis Is Really a Process Crisis

If your best engineers spend their days sorting tickets and resetting access, you are wasting talent. New global data shows that employees in the IT sector rank among the least motivated across industries. They're under a lot of pressure from many angles. Pressure to upskill and uncertainty around what agentic AI means for job security is creating anxiety. Meanwhile, these roles often function like an on-call job and require many repetitive tasks ...

AI Now Interacts With Production Databases in 96.5% of Organizations as Governance Automation Lags

In a 2026 survey conducted by Liquibase, the research found that 96.5% of organizations reported at least one AI or LLM interaction with their production databases, often through analytics and reporting, training pipelines, internal copilots, and AI generated SQL. Only a small fraction reported no interaction at all. That means the database is no longer a downstream system that AI "might" reach later. AI is already there ...

From Fragmented Systems to Intelligent Platforms: An ITIL+ Playbook for Enterprise IT Transformation

In many organizations, IT still operates as a reactive service provider. Systems are managed through fragmented tools, teams focus heavily on operational metrics, and business leaders often see IT as a necessary cost center rather than a strategic partner. Even well-run ITIL environments can struggle to bridge the gap between operational excellence and business impact. This is where the concept of ITIL+ comes in ...

UK Organizations Hit Observability Breaking Point

UK IT leaders are reaching a critical inflection point in how they manage observability, according to research from LogicMonitor. As infrastructure complexity grows and AI adoption accelerates, fragmented monitoring environments are driving organizations to rethink their operational strategies and consolidate tools ...

At the Edge, Performance Visibility Becomes a Reliability Requirement

For years, many infrastructure teams treated the edge as a deployment variation. It was seen as the same cloud model, only stretched outward: more devices, more gateways, more locations and a little more latency. That assumption is proving costly. The edge is not just another place to run workloads. It is a fundamentally different operating condition ...

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Beyond 2026: How 5G, Metaverse, and Edge AI Will Redefine Secure Remote Access

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Why IT Has Become the Proving Ground for Enterprise AI

Ask where enterprise AI is making its most decisive impact, and the answer might surprise you: not marketing, not finance, not customer experience. It's IT. Across three years of industry research conducted by Digitate, one constant holds true is that IT is both the testing ground and the proving ground for enterprise AI. Last year, that position only strengthened ...