| has become the most pervasive form of business | | | | • 28% of outages between 1 and 4 hours |
| communication, impacting every aspect of every | | | | • 26% of outages lasted more than 48 hours |
| organization: communications between management, | | | | • 17% of outages were between 24 and 48 |
| employees, prospects, customers, vendors, suppliers, | | | | hours |
| partners, investors, and analysts. | | | | Causes of Unplanned E-mail Outages |
| The average email user sends 34 emails and receives | | | | A large majority of email outages were caused by |
| 99 emails every day, and overall email use is growing | | | | unplanned events, most of which were due to |
| 53% per year. Despite large enterprise investments in | | | | technological failures. |
| replication, mirroring, and tape back up systems, email | | | | Reasons for Technological Failures: |
| systems continue to fail. While it is widely known that | | | | • 35% were due to server hardware failures, |
| natural and man-made disasters can lead to email | | | | averaging 18.1 hours in outage duration, |
| outages, new data shows that email systems are | | | | • 19% were due to connectivity losses, |
| more frequently brought down by technological | | | | averaging 27.4 hours, |
| failures. | | | | • 16% were due to SAN failures averaging |
| MessageOne, a leading provider of email continuity | | | | 25.5 hours, and |
| solutions, commissioned this research report to | | | | • 16% were due to database corruption |
| understand the frequency, severity, and cause of | | | | averaging 9.0 hours in duration. |
| email outages in North American corporations using | | | | The majority of these, specifically database |
| Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes. This research | | | | corruption and SAN failures, are troubling because |
| shows that enterprise email systems are prone to a | | | | they are the most difficult to prevent. Even with |
| variety of potential breakdowns including SAN | | | | expensive mirroring and replication backup solutions, |
| (Storage Area Network) failures, improper | | | | data corruption and SAN failures are often |
| configuration, losses in network access, database | | | | propagated to the mirror or replicated backup server. |
| corruption, and viruses. Data from the survey shows | | | | These failures usually result in long outages as |
| that in any given 12-month time period, there is a | | | | companies resort to incremental tape backups to |
| 75% likelihood of an unplanned email outage and a | | | | locate the last backup before the corruption |
| 14% likelihood of a planned email outage for any | | | | occurred. |
| given company. | | | | Note: While natural disasters accounted for only 14% |
| MessageOne recently surveyed its customers -- | | | | of unplanned email outages, the average downtime |
| hundreds of companies serving over 1,000,000 email | | | | due to such disasters was over 60 hours, meaning |
| users -- on email outages during a recent 30 week | | | | these can lead to significant impact on businesses. |
| period. This report analyzes the leading causes of | | | | Conclusions: Despite Heavy Investment, Email Still Fails |
| failure with enterprise email systems. | | | | Every day, more and more companies are concluding |
| Email Outage Frequency & Duration | | | | that email is a mission-critical application worthy of |
| Survey results show that in any given 12-month time | | | | inclusion in a business continuity plan. |
| period, there is a 75% likelihood of an unplanned email | | | | Email continuity plans need to be developed that take |
| outage and a 14% likelihood of a planned email | | | | into account the shortcomings of tape backup and |
| outage in any given company. The length of email | | | | replication/mirroring systems. Solutions should then be |
| outages in the companies surveyed ranged from a | | | | deployed that limit dependency on these types of |
| minimum of 2 minutes to a maximum of 120 hours | | | | technology and can reduce downtime during any |
| with the average email outage being 32.1 hours long. | | | | outage. You can learn more about email continuity, |
| Responses on Email Outages: | | | | email management systems, IT disaster planning and |
| • 29% of outages between 4 and 24 hours | | | | recovery, and business continuity planning. |
| in duration | | | | |