For businesses, end users to be able to access their services whenever they need them is critical – and for this to be a reality, their IT network must be fully functioning to the best of its capability at all times. Everything from a brand’s website to their servers should be up and running to provide a seamless service for the end user, but of course, disruptions and outages do, unfortunately, happen. When they do, how the business reacts is key, and the monitoring and measurement of such issues can help inform future infrastructure and management decisions.
Network Availability
Network availability refers to the accessibility of a network – that it works as intended when needed. This means a user is able to access the network in the way they want, when they want, with no service disruption.
Measuring Network Availability
Availability is measured as a percentage of time that the network assets are running as intended. To calculate it, the amount of downtime must be subtracted from the agreed service time, and then divided by the amount of agreed service time. This presents the availability percentage score.
What’s the difference between Network Availability and Network Reliability?
The terms ‘availability’ and ‘reliability’ are often used interchangeably, but in networking terms they refer to slightly different measurements. While availability is the measurement of the IT assets ability to be operated as usual, reliability is the measurement of a piece of hardware’s ability to perform as intended for a set amount of time without experiencing any disruption or failure.
Network Uptime
‘Network uptime’ has become somewhat of a marketing phrase in recent years, for manufacturers and service providers to boast of their superior performance. However, while it is used as a benchmark for network performance, it does have a specific meaning.
Network uptime refers to the percentage of time that the system is ready for usual function. It states how long the hardware or network has been working for and is available for, as a percentage.
Network Uptime and Network Availability
It’s easy to see how these two terms are often confused for one another, but they do refer to two separate metrics. While uptime is an indicator of performance, it’s not a guarantee of it.
Measuring Network Uptime
In most cases, network uptime is expressed as a percentage annually. This is calculated through the number of hours throughout the year that the network is running correctly, divided by the number of hours in the year (8,760, or 8,784 in a leap year). This number is then multiplied by 100 to become a percentage.
Uptime Requirements
The total amount of time that a system is available for its end-user service is known as ‘uptime requirements’. This is usually calculated as a percentage of the total scheduled working hours.
Network Downtime
The opposite of uptime is downtime. Downtime refers to any period of time when the network is not available for use. Downtime can occur for a variety of reasons, usually an issue with hardware or the outage of services that the network relies on for operation.
Measuring Network Downtime
To calculate the downtime percentage of a network, take the number of downtime hours in an annual period and divide it by the number of hours in a year (8,760, or 8,784 in a leap year). The network downtime percentage needs to be as small a number as possible; ideally much less than 1%.
The Five Nines
The Five Nines is a term used amongst IT professionals to refer to the high availability of network services; as 99.999% uptime. Various versions of the Five Nines are often used colloquially, including One Nine which signals 90% uptime. Of course, these measurements are referring to very little downtime but the variance is large – One Nine uptime means 36.5 days of downtime in a year, whereas the Five Nines of uptime means less than 5.3 minutes per year.
The Five Nines are used as a marketing point by network service providers and hardware OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) as the measurement demonstrates great uptime metrics. However, it should be noted by businesses that this is rarely an actual guarantee and does not indicate reliability at all. It’s critical, therefore, that businesses do not procure network services or hardware assets just on the basis of this metric, but rather based on the actual capabilities of the company or equipment.
Other Network Measurement Metrics
It is entirely up to businesses how they chose to measure their network services. There are a whole host of relevant metrics that can be used alongside network availability, network uptime and network downtime.
MTTN
MTTN is an acronym for Mean Time To Notify. This is a measure of the average amount of time it takes before a data center outage notification is sent to its users. MTTN matters as users are unlikely to be pleased with a service if they have to wait a long time to be notified.
MTTR
MTTR is an acronym for Mean Time To Repair. This measurement is how long it takes for network availability to be restored after an outage period. The lower the score, the quicker the time – so businesses should aim for as low a number as possible to maintain seamless service for end users.
MTBF
MTBF is an acronym for Mean Time Between Failures. This is the average time between failures of a hardware product. Opposite to MTTR, businesses need this score to be as high as possible to demonstrate the good reliability of their network services.
Customer Satisfaction Score
An often overlooked measurement of network success is not necessarily an IT-related one – the customer satisfaction score. If a business has a high customer satisfaction score amongst its end users, it is likely to meet their expectations and provide a level of network service they are pleased with. If the customer satisfaction score is lower than hoped, it may be that analysis into network availability, network uptime and network downtime metrics can contribute to understanding the reasoning behind it.
What’s the most important Network Measurement Metric?
All businesses have their own priorities when it comes to reporting, and will choose to report and work on varying metrics. However, overall, it is considered that network availability is the most crucial of the network services measurements. While uptime must be high and downtime must be low, it’s likely impossible to reach 100% uptime. The Five Nines are often used as a target for network services, but too much focus on this can distract from other key areas as it is so difficult to achieve.
Most SLAs given will feature several network measurement metrics, but these should not simply form numbers on a report. Rather, they should be used in a cycle of continuous improvement for the business to continue to get better at their services and enhance their proposition for users.
IT teams must ensure that they have robust business continuity and disaster recovery plans in place so that if the worst does happen, they are able to swiftly restore service and minimise any disruption to end users. This will help boost both network measurement metrics and overall customer satisfaction scores.
Custom SLAs with Procurri
At Procurri, we know that every organization is different and all have their own idiosyncrasies. That’s why, with our Third Party Maintenance services for networking, servers and storage, we offer custom SLAs. This allows our expert teams to fully tailor our service offering to meet the standards and requirements of your business, ensuring that your end users continue to receive a superb level of service.
We also offer three packaged SLAs as follows:
BASIC: 9×5 Help Desk, Online Portal, Next Business Day (customer replaceable unit) parts.
ENHANCED: 9×5 Help Desk, Online Portal, Field Engineer onsite Next Business Day with parts.
PREMIUM: 24x7x4 Help Desk, Online Portal, Field Engineer onsite within 4 hours of diagnosis with parts.
The customizable SLAs are defined by a SOW (Statement of Work) designed to meet your business’ exact and unique needs. No two are the same, and most offer industry-leading levels of response.
To discuss your network’s individual requirements and delve more into how the Procurri team can help measure, report and improve upon network metrics, get in touch today. Our team is made up of networking, storage and server specialists with years of expertise – so no matter how complex your configurations, rare your hardware, or remote your location, the Procurri team can help!