Study drills down on effects of data center outages

Sponsored by Emerson Network Power, the Ponemon Institute's 2013Study on Data Center Outages quirkily reveals that over 80% of "senior level to rank-and-file" IT professionals "say they would rather walk barefoot over hot coals than have their data center go down."

Related: Analysis finds 70% of data center outages directly attributable to human error

The study surveys 58 individuals in U.S. organizations who have responsibility for data center operations. Eighty-five percent of respondents reported that their organizations experienced a loss of primary utility power in the past 24 months. Among those organizations that had a loss of primary utility power, 91 percent report their organizations had an unplanned outage.

The study indicates that data center professionals are overwhelmed by unplanned power outages, have waning confidence in electrical utility providers, and feel ill-equipped to minimize the impact of outages. The findings also suggest that companies do not have practices and investments in place to reduce or respond to data center outages, concludes Ponemon.

View/Download the study.