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The Changing Face of Network Downtime

Vess Bakalov

Our connected world continues to transform into a mobile one. The network is a constant and fascinating companion, which grants us 24/7 access where communication is instant and takes place across an array of devices, unconstrained by physical barriers. As a result, the IT infrastructure is more critical than ever for business operations. Companies and organizations are calling upon a variety of technologies that are changing the face of today’s network — from mobile devices, to cloud services, to web-based applications.

And the strain on the network is not expected to decrease. In fact, Cisco reports that in two years, the number of devices connected to IP networks will be nearly three times that of the global population. At the same time, network management and performance challenges are also on the rise. The explosion of mobile, cloud and web-based apps make it difficult to determine where in today’s evolving world, the network begins and where it ends. As a result, service issues and outages are becoming more commonplace, prompting losses in revenue, customer satisfaction and employee productivity. A recent survey from Avaya speaks to the cost of network downtime, addressing the large degree of variance based on the characteristics of a business and environment (i.e., your vertical, risk tolerance, etc.), indicating the range is from $140K to $540K per hour.

Over the past couple of months, we’ve seen high-profile network outages capturing headlines across the US. A large number of service providers were affected by the 512K Day issue – when the Internet routing table grew beyond what many legacy routers were designed to handle. Then, in August more than 11 million Time Warner Cable (TWC) subscribers across 29 states lost service for about three hours, and just a week later, Facebook suffered its fourth outage over the past five months. Unavailability in two of the three previously mentioned cases was blamed on configuration glitches and as a result, quickly resolved.

The Most Important Word for Every Network: Availability

But why do network outages seem to be popping up more frequently, affecting more people? It’s really a question of perception – more people are consuming more services and everyone expects to be connected around the clock, around the world, using any device.

In a blog post earlier this summer, Andrew Lerner, a Research Director for Gartner, zeroed in on the most important word associated with every network: availability. As he notes, “Performance, scalability, management, agility, etc. all require the network to actually be online.”

Unfortunately, availability is assumed to be table stakes to most companies. I am not sure I agree with him entirely. Availability is table stakes. However, modern infrastructure — especially in service providers — is massively redundant. Pure availability is rarely the problem. More often service outages are due to poor capacity planning, spurious events or changes that bring unanticipated consequences (like Pakistan inadvertently re-routing all YouTube traffic).

For smaller businesses in particular, unavailability of core services not only represents a loss of control and a loss of earnings, but also potentially a lesson in reputational damage. Without network performance management solutions, businesses are unnecessarily exposing themselves to risk. Technology should be detecting and even preventing outages automatically, without the need for manual intervention. Technical staff cannot be expected to continually gather and analyze data that might indicate an impending outage, nor can they be expected to act quickly enough to stave off an incident. While the likes of TWC and Facebook can rapidly recover from disruptive infrastructure issues, smaller organizations can’t, and that is why they must take steps to protect themselves.

Reacting to performance thresholds is not enough. To ensure a company’s network is available 24/7, it’s critical to predict problems before they become service impacting. The deployment of solutions that log data and provide real-time analytics on large volumes of unstructured data are crucial to every IT department. These solutions provide IT organizations the opportunity to gain better insight into the behavior of users, customers, applications and networks, allowing businesses to spot issues before they happen – significantly reducing, or in some cases, eliminating downtime altogether.

Vess Bakalov is SVP, CTO and Co-Founder of SevOne.

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The Changing Face of Network Downtime

Vess Bakalov

Our connected world continues to transform into a mobile one. The network is a constant and fascinating companion, which grants us 24/7 access where communication is instant and takes place across an array of devices, unconstrained by physical barriers. As a result, the IT infrastructure is more critical than ever for business operations. Companies and organizations are calling upon a variety of technologies that are changing the face of today’s network — from mobile devices, to cloud services, to web-based applications.

And the strain on the network is not expected to decrease. In fact, Cisco reports that in two years, the number of devices connected to IP networks will be nearly three times that of the global population. At the same time, network management and performance challenges are also on the rise. The explosion of mobile, cloud and web-based apps make it difficult to determine where in today’s evolving world, the network begins and where it ends. As a result, service issues and outages are becoming more commonplace, prompting losses in revenue, customer satisfaction and employee productivity. A recent survey from Avaya speaks to the cost of network downtime, addressing the large degree of variance based on the characteristics of a business and environment (i.e., your vertical, risk tolerance, etc.), indicating the range is from $140K to $540K per hour.

Over the past couple of months, we’ve seen high-profile network outages capturing headlines across the US. A large number of service providers were affected by the 512K Day issue – when the Internet routing table grew beyond what many legacy routers were designed to handle. Then, in August more than 11 million Time Warner Cable (TWC) subscribers across 29 states lost service for about three hours, and just a week later, Facebook suffered its fourth outage over the past five months. Unavailability in two of the three previously mentioned cases was blamed on configuration glitches and as a result, quickly resolved.

The Most Important Word for Every Network: Availability

But why do network outages seem to be popping up more frequently, affecting more people? It’s really a question of perception – more people are consuming more services and everyone expects to be connected around the clock, around the world, using any device.

In a blog post earlier this summer, Andrew Lerner, a Research Director for Gartner, zeroed in on the most important word associated with every network: availability. As he notes, “Performance, scalability, management, agility, etc. all require the network to actually be online.”

Unfortunately, availability is assumed to be table stakes to most companies. I am not sure I agree with him entirely. Availability is table stakes. However, modern infrastructure — especially in service providers — is massively redundant. Pure availability is rarely the problem. More often service outages are due to poor capacity planning, spurious events or changes that bring unanticipated consequences (like Pakistan inadvertently re-routing all YouTube traffic).

For smaller businesses in particular, unavailability of core services not only represents a loss of control and a loss of earnings, but also potentially a lesson in reputational damage. Without network performance management solutions, businesses are unnecessarily exposing themselves to risk. Technology should be detecting and even preventing outages automatically, without the need for manual intervention. Technical staff cannot be expected to continually gather and analyze data that might indicate an impending outage, nor can they be expected to act quickly enough to stave off an incident. While the likes of TWC and Facebook can rapidly recover from disruptive infrastructure issues, smaller organizations can’t, and that is why they must take steps to protect themselves.

Reacting to performance thresholds is not enough. To ensure a company’s network is available 24/7, it’s critical to predict problems before they become service impacting. The deployment of solutions that log data and provide real-time analytics on large volumes of unstructured data are crucial to every IT department. These solutions provide IT organizations the opportunity to gain better insight into the behavior of users, customers, applications and networks, allowing businesses to spot issues before they happen – significantly reducing, or in some cases, eliminating downtime altogether.

Vess Bakalov is SVP, CTO and Co-Founder of SevOne.

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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