The Real Cost of Downtime

Adam Cady

The Real Cost of Downtime

Calculating Risk in Remote Network Management

Network downtime is often framed as a technical issue measured in availability metrics or mean time to repair (MTTR). For enterprises and U.S. Government agencies operating distributed, remote, or mission-critical networks, downtime represents measurable financial loss, mission degradation, and increased operational risk.

Downtime by the Numbers: Empirical Cost Data

Independent industry research consistently shows that downtime is costly. Gartner estimates average downtime costs of approximately $5,600 per minute. IDC reports infrastructure failures cost organizations $100,000 per hour on average, and Uptime Institute surveys show over 60% of outages exceed $100,000 in losses.

Downtime Cost Calculator

Use the following formula to estimate exposure:

Downtime Cost = Cost per Hour × Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR)

Reducing MTTR is the fastest and most reliable way to reduce total downtime loss.

How OOBM Reduces Downtime Risk

Secure Out-of-Band Management provides independent access to network devices during outages, allowing faster recovery without relying on the production network.

Conclusion

Downtime is inevitable, but extended downtime is not. OOBM materially reduces recovery time and financial risk.

References

1. Gartner – The Cost of Downtime

2. IDC – The Business Value of Infrastructure Resiliency

3. Uptime Institute – Annual Outage Analysis

4. NIST SP 800-207 – Zero Trust Architecture