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The interconnectedness of our world has led to a growing reliance on cloud technology in modern business . Given that many companies are injecting vast amounts of money into their cloud setups , they expect to be able to access their resources at all times and depend on systems never going down . Businesses often default to a public cloud provider for perceived lack of complexity when it comes to managing resources and room to scale . There is also a sense that with big names such as Amazon , Google , or Microsoft , they ’ re safe from outages .
The truth about cloud outages
In reality , as cloud becomes more ubiquitous , public cloud outages have equally become almost an inevitable part of cloud operations .
The Microsoft outage cyber incident a few months ago , in which a range of Microsoft services such as Outlook were taken offline , highlights the dangers of relying on a single public cloud provider . Millions of Microsoft Azure customers were affected around the globe without discrimination – large enterprises were impacted right along with smaller businesses . For example , the US Commerce Secretary and several US State Department officials were just some of the organisations affected .
Microsoft has experienced a number of outages this year alone , such as a massive cloud outage in January which affected 15 million corporate customers and over 500 million active users , leaving them with no access to Teams and Outlook .
All this to say that cloud outages do happen – and opting for a public cloud provider because of the brand familiarity might not provide the peace of mind organisations are seeking .
What ’ s more , the effects of an outage are not insignificant . The general estimate for costs associated with downtime amount to US $ 5,600 per minute and closer to US $ 9,000 per minute for larger businesses .
How to minimise the risk of a cloud outage
While these costs can be detrimental for a business , there are steps IT decision-makers can take to minimise the risk of downtime . These steps include recognising the challenges of the public cloud , understanding the alternative options available and finally , adopting a diversified cloud approach that suits your business and its individual goals .
When choosing a cloud provider , it ’ s easy for a business to sign a contract with a hyperscaler and hope cloud workloads run effectively on their own from there . However , it ’ s important to recognise that relying on just one cloud provider increases companies ’ vulnerability to outages and exacerbates their effects . If that one provider ’ s services go down , your entire business can grind to a halt .
What ’ s more , in the situation of an outage with a public cloud provider , rectifying the issue isn ’ t a quick fix . As a result of the size and structure of the public cloud hyperscalers , companies can often face significant wait times and must speak to multiple layers of customer service staff before gaining access to a software engineer who can aim to solve their problem . And as we know , every second counts in an outage . Outages can lead to prolonged downtime , disrupted business operations and compromised customer experiences , which can tarnish a company ’ s reputation , even if the blame lies with the cloud provider .
For this reason , IT decision-makers need to think about exploring all the cloud options available to them and make sure they don ’ t blindly put all their eggs in one basket . This is the best way to ensure uptime of critical
Jon Lucas , Co-founder and Director of Hyve Managed Hosting
Opting for a public cloud provider because of the brand familiarity might not provide the peace of mind organisations are seeking .
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