Cloud failures cause 568 hrs downtime, over $70 mn loss

PARIS, FRANCE: A total of 568 hours of downtime, at 13 cloud service biggies since 2007, caused an economic impact of over $70 million, finds a report by The International Working Group on Cloud Computing Resiliency (IWGCR).

IWGCR, formed in March 2012 by Telecom ParisTech and Paris 13 University, in its first Availability Ranking of World Cloud Computing (ARWC) finds that average unavailability of Cloud services is estimated to 10 hours per year or more.

It is extremely far from the expected reliability of mission critical system (99:999 per cent). As a comparsion, the service average unavailablity for electricity in a modern capital is less than 15 minutes per year. The cost of these failures amounts for more than 70 millions USDs based on hourly costs accepted in industry.

Laurent Séguin, co-ordinator, IWGCR, says: “The Availability Ranking of World Cloud Computing provides an initial estimate of the average availability of of Cloud Computing services.”

Yingjie XU, PhD student at Paris 13 University, adds “The average unavailability of  public Cloud services can be estimated to 10 hours per year or more.” Christophe Cérin, Prof. at Paris 13 University, notices that “this estimate could be compared to the 15 minutes of average unavailability of domestic electricity in a city like Paris.”