Businesses and organisations facing downtime or service disruption are quite common. Downtime can happen for multiple reasons, including application unavailability, technical issues, network failures, and network maintenance. Whatever the reason, it could be costly for organisations and businesses.

A new report from New Relic reveals that high-impact outages could result in a median cost of $1.9 million an hour globally.

For India, the median hourly cost for high business impact was $2 million, a tad higher than the global average. The median annual downtime from high-business-impact outages is about three days, leading to a median annual outage cost of $146 million.

Full-stack observability

The 2024 Observability Forecast, a comprehensive analysis of the state of observability, surveyed over 1,700 technology professionals across 16 countries. The research indicates a significant need for full-stack observability, particularly in India, where the median hourly cost of high-impact outages reaches $1.9 million.    

The study found that engineering teams spend nearly a third of their time (30%) dealing with service interruptions, equating to 12 hours out of a typical 40-hour workweek.  Network failures, issues with third-party or cloud providers, and human error are the most common culprits behind these outages.    

AI monitoring

The study also highlights a strong link between the growing adoption of AI and the increasing need for observability.  AI monitoring is a key area of focus, particularly in India, where it is the most deployed observability capability.    

Investing in observability yields substantial returns, with most Indian organizations reporting an annual gain of $1 million. Beyond financial benefits, observability contributes to improved system uptime, increased operational efficiency, and enhanced developer productivity, the report said.

“Nearly two-thirds (65%) of respondents in India experienced high-business-impact outages at least once per week, with 31% stating they experienced them once a day or more, the highest of all countries surveyed,” the report said.

About 84% said the cost of that considerable downtime for critical business app outages was $500,000 or more per hour, while 77% reported costs in the north of $1 million.

Related Topics