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THE NUMERATOR

The high cost of failures on the network

Starting with Exchange 2007, Microsoft has offered a set of new tools for maintaining the messaging environment during disasters or equipment outages by replicating the Exchange implementation across a wide-area network. Although the tools are valuable, restoring a failed implementation can still be costly and time-consuming, according to a study from Teneros.

Cause of outage:     Work hours to recover:  Basic cost of recovery*:
Server failure

25 to 71

 $3,750 to $10,650

Database failure

26 to 75 

$3,900 to $11,250

Total site failure

26 to 75

$13,800 to $35,700

*Based on a rate of $150 per hour.

Source: "Total Cost of Installation, Operation and Ownership of Microsoft Exchange 2007 Clustering Tools for High Availability and Disaster Recovery," Teneros.

About the Author

Joab Jackson is the senior technology editor for Government Computer News.

Reader Comments

Tue, Nov 3, 2009 RH

The article may or may not be indicative, but the IT community too often treats delays, inconvenience, and lost productivity of the users as external costs, and ignores them. When network failures bring an entire organization to a virtual halt, the true cost usually will be immensely greater than the tiny figures cited in the article. At a minimum, the existence of such costs should be noted.

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