Dell

ITIC 2021 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey Results

2021, ITIC Reports & Surveys / By Laura DiDio

The technical and business challenges posed by the ongoing global pandemic didn’t compromise the core reliability of IBM, Lenovo, Huawei, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and Cisco servers.

For the 13th straight year, IBM’s Z mainframe and mission critical Power servers achieved the highest server hardware reliability and delivered the strongest server security, among 15 different platforms, in ITIC’s annual 2021 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey.

And for the eighth consecutive year, Lenovo’s ThinkSystem servers again matched their best recorded uptime among all Intel x 86 servers along with Huawei’s KunLun and Fusion platforms. The HPE Superdome and the Cisco UCS hardware (in that order), rounded out the top five most reliable vendor hardware platforms (See Exhibit 1).

ITIC’s 2021 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability independent Web-based survey, polled 1,200 corporations across 28 vertical market segments worldwide on the reliability, performance and security of the most popular server platforms from January through June 2021. Additionally, the preliminary findings from ITIC’s 2021 Global Reliability updated survey conducted from September through November 2021, indicate that the IBM Z, IBM Power servers; the Lenovo ThinkSystem and Huawei KunLun and Fusion servers continue to dominate and deliver the highest uptime, availability and security in datacenters and the cloud.

Among the top survey findings:

Server Reliability: IBM z14 and z15 outpaced all rivals, matching its best ever results: just 0.60 seconds of per server monthly unplanned downtime. The IBM Power models also equaled their best uptime scores over the last 13 years, with just 1.49 minutes of unplanned per server downtime. The Lenovo ThinkSystem and Huawei KunLun platforms followed closely, each with 1.51 minutes of unplanned per server outages. Inspur was in the middle of the pack with 11 minutes of unplanned per server downtime, while the Dell PowerEdge servers posted 26 minutes of unanticipated outages. Unbranded White box servers (which often run unlicensed or pirated software) again were the least reliable servers with 57 minutes of unplanned per server downtime; this is up two (2) minutes from 2020.
Server Availability: The IBM Z servers are in a class by themselves, a 94% majority of IBM Z customers said their businesses achieved unparalleled fault tolerant levels of six and seven nines – 99.9999% and 99.99999% reliability and continuous availability, the best among all server distributions. The IBM Power is close behind with 91% of customers reporting that the Power9 and latest Power10 models deliver a minimum of five and six nines availability/uptime. Meanwhile, 90% of Lenovo ThinkSystem, Huawei KunLun and HPE Superdome enterprises said their businesses achieve a minimum of five and six nines server availability.
Cost Effectiveness/Total Cost of Ownership: The most reliable IBM z14 and z15; IBM LinuxONE III and the PowerPower8 and PowerPower9 servers deliver the best TCO and near immediate Return on Investment (ROI). A single minute of per server unplanned downtime on an IBM z14 or z15 server, calculated at a rate of $100,000, costs enterprise customers $1,002. One minute of unplanned downtime on a single IBM Power8 and Power9 calculated at $100,000 an hour costs $2,488. The upcoming Power10, slated to ship in September will likely offer better reliability and lower costs even further. The Lenovo ThinkSystem and Huawei KunLun and Fusion offerings each averaged 1.51 minutes of unplanned per server outages; that equates to per server/per minute downtime charges of $2,521. Unbranded White box servers with 57 minutes of unplanned per server downtime could cost corporations $95,190 when hourly downtime losses are calculated at $100,000 (See Exhibit 3 and Exhibit 4).
Security hacks, user error and remote working/remote learning are the top three causes of unplanned downtime. A 73% majority of survey participants cited security as the number one cause of unplanned server downtime; 64% said human error caused unplanned server outages. Meanwhile, 58% of survey participants attributed increased downtime to management and security issues related to COVID-19 issues like remote working and remote academic learning via Zoom meetings for K-through-12 and college classes. While offices and schools were closed during the global pandemic during 2020 and much of 2021, IT and security administrators were hard pressed to effectively manage and secure remote PCs, laptops, notebooks and tablets. Consequently many employees and students did not adequately secure their personal devices. An April 2021 Fortune magazine article noted that hybrid and remote workplace and academic environments created many positive opportunities for businesses and schools, but they also represent a potential boon for hackers.

In 2020, cybercriminals transmitted 61% of malware through cloud applications to target remote workers, according to the July 2021 Netskope Cloud and Threat Report . The report said that utilizing cloud-based applications enables hackers to circumvent older, legacy Email and Web-based security solutions. The Netskope report further noted that security risks are exacerbated by the fact that 83% of employees and students access sensitive personal data via applications installed on corporate and academic devices e.g., laptops, notebooks and tablets. This can result in dire consequences in the connected digital era. To cite one example, in March 2020, the California State Controller’s Office, which handles $100 billion a year, suffered an email phishing attack on an employee that enabled cyber criminals cloud access to internal documents; once they gained entrance to the employee’s device they were able to successfully phish another 9,000 employees.

The reliability and security of server hardware, server operating systems and mission critical applications are critical elements of the core datacenter, network edge and cloud infrastructure.

Eighty-nine (89%) percent of organizations require a minimum of “four nines” – 99.99% reliability to ensure uninterrupted daily business operations and secure data assets to sustain the company’s revenue stream and mitigate risk. And over one-third of organizations now strive for “five nines” 99.999% of uptime; this equals 5.25 minutes of per server unplanned downtime.

Each second and minute of server downtime and the associated mission critical applications costs the business money and raises transactional operations and monetary risks.

In the digital era of interconnected intelligent systems and networks, unplanned downtime of even a few minutes is expensive and disruptive and can reverberate across the entire ecosystem. This includes datacenters; virtualized public, private and hybrid clouds; remote work and learning environments and the intelligent network edge.

ITIC’s 2021 Hourly Cost of Downtime survey indicates a single hour of server downtime totals $300,000 or more for 91% percent of mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large enterprises. And among that 91% majority – nearly half or 44% – of corporations said, hourly outage costs exceed one million ($1M) to over five million ($5M).

ITIC 2021 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey Results Read More »

ITIC Editorial Calendar

Laura's Insights ITIC Blog / By Laura DiDio

March/April 2020: ITIC 2020 Global Server Hardware and Server OS Reliability Survey

Description: Reliability and uptime are absolutely essential. Over 80% of corporations now require a minimum of 99.99% availability and greater; and an increasing number of enterprises now demand five nines – 99.999% or higher reliability. But which platforms actually deliver? This survey polls businesses on the reliability, uptime and management issues involving the inherent reliability of 14 different server hardware platforms and server operating system. The survey polls corporations on the frequency, the duration and reasons associated with Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 outages that occur on their core server OS and server hardware platforms. The results of this independent, non-vendor sponsored survey will provide businesses with the information they need to determine the TCO and ROI of their individual environments. The survey will also enable the server OS and server hardware vendors to see how their products rate among global users ranging from SMBs with as few as 25 people to the largest global enterprises with 100,000+ end users.

The 2020 ITIC Global Reliability Survey has also been updated and expanded to include questions on:

Component level failure data comparisons between IBM Power Servers and Intel-based x86 servers such as Dell, HP, Huawei, Lenovo and Cisco.
Percentage of component level failure data comparisons by vendor according to age (e.g. new to three months; three to six months; six months to 1 year; 1 to 2 years; 2 to 3 years; 3 to 4 years; 4 to 5 years; over five years).
Which component parts fail and frequency of failure
A percentage breakout of server parts failures for parts such as hard disk drives(HDD), processors, memory, power components, fans, or other
Where available, how the component failed. For example: memory multi-bit errors, HDD read failures, processor L1/L2 cache errors, etc.

April/May: 2020 Hourly Cost of Downtime

Description: Downtime impacts every aspect of the business. It can disrupt operations and end user productivity, result in data losses and raise the risk of litigation. Downtime can also result in lost business and irreparably damage a company’s reputation. The cost of downtime continues to increase as do the business risks. ITIC’s 2019 Hourly Cost of Downtime survey found an 85 % majority of organizations now require a minimum of 99.99% availability. This is the equivalent of 52 minutes of unplanned outages related to downtime for mission critical systems and applications or just 4.33 minutes of unplanned monthly outage for servers, applications and networks. This survey will once again poll corporations on how much one hour of downtime costs their business – exclusive of litigation, civil or criminal penalties. ITIC will also interview customers and vendors across 10 key vertical markets including: Banking/Finance; Education; Government; Healthcare; Manufacturing; Retail; Transportation and Utilities. The Report will focus on the toll that downtime extracts on the business, its IT departments, its employees, its business partners, suppliers and its external customers. This report will also examine the remediation efforts involved in resuming full operations as well as the lingering or after-effects to the corporation’s reputation as the result of an unplanned outage.

May/June 2020: ITIC Sexual Harassment, Gender Bias and Pay Equity Survey

Description: ITIC’s “Sexual Harassment, Gender Bias and Pay Equity Gap,” independent Web survey polled 1,500 women professionals worldwide across 47 different industries, with a special emphasis on STEM disciplines. The survey focuses on three key areas of workplace discrimination: Sexual Harassment, Gender Bias and Unequal Pay.

July/August: 2020 IoT Deployment and Usage Trends Survey and Report

Description: The Internet of Things (IoT) has been one of the hottest emerging technologies of the last several years. This ITIC Report will present the findings of an ITIC survey that polls corporations on the business and technical challenges as well as the costs associated with IoT deployments. This IoT Report will also examine the ever present security risks associated with interconnected environments and ecosystems. ITIC’s IoT 2020 Deployment and Usage Trends Survey will also query global businesses on a variety of crucial issues related to their current and planned Internet of Things (IoT) usage and deployments such as how they are using IoT (e.g. on-premises versus Network Edge/Perimeter deployments); the chief benefits and biggest challenges and impediments to IoT upgrades. Vendors profiled for this report will include: AT&T, Bosch, Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, General Electric (GE), Google, Hitachi, Huawei, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Particle, PTC, Qualcomm, Samsung, SAP, Siemens and Verizon.

August: ITIC 2020-2021 Security Trends

Description: Security, security, security! Security impacts every aspect of computing and networking operations in the Digital Age. And it’s never been more crucial as businesses, schools, government workers and consumers are working at home amidst the ongoing Nouvel and damaging security hack impacting the lives of millions of consumers and corporations. This Report will utilize the latest ITIC independent survey data to provide an overview of the latest trends in computer security including the latest and most dangerous hacks and what corporations can do to defend their data assets. Among the topics covered:

Security threats in the age of COVID-19
The most prevalent type of security hacks
The percentage of corporations that experienced a security hack
The duration of the security hack
The severity of the security hack
The cost of the security hack
Monetary losses experienced due to security breaches
Lost, damaged, destroyed or stolen data due to a security breach
The percentage of time that corporations spend securing their networks and data assets
Specific security policies and procedures companies are implementing
The issues that pose the biggest threats/risks to corporate security

August/September: ITIC 2020 Global Server Hardware Server OS Reliability Survey Mid-Year Update

Description: This Report is the Mid-year update of ITIC’s Annual Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey. Each year ITIC conducts a second survey of selected questions from its Annual Reliability poll. ITIC also conducts new interviews with C-level executives and Network administrators to get detailed insights on the reliability of their server hardware and operating system software as well as the technical service and support they receive from their respective vendors. ITIC will also incorporate updated PowerPoint slides and statistics to accompany the report.

October/November: AI, Machine Learning and Data Analytics Market Outlook

Description: This Report will examine the pivotal role that AI, Machine Learning and IoT-enabled predictive and prescriptive Analytics plays in assisting businesses sort through the data deluge to make informed decisions and derive real business value from their applications. AI and Machine Learning take Data Analytics to new levels. They can help businesses identify new product opportunities and also uncover hidden risks. Machine intelligence is already built into predictive and prescriptive analytics tools, speeding insights and enabling the analysis of vast probabilities to determine an optimal course of action or the best set of options. Over time, more sophisticated forms of AI will find their way into analytics systems, further improving the speed and accuracy of decision-making. Rather than querying a system and waiting for a response, the trend has been toward interactivity using visual interfaces. In the near future, voice interfaces will become more common, enabling humans to carry on interactive conversations with digital assistants while watching the analytical results on a screen. Analytics makes businesses more efficient; it enables them to cut costs and lower ongoing operational expenditures. It also helps them respond more quickly and agilely to changing market conditions – making them more competitive and thus driving top line revenue in both the near term and long term strategic sales. Vendors Profiled: AppDynamics, BMC, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and SAS. It also discusses how non-traditional vendors in the carrier and networking segments e.g. Dell/EMC, GE, Google, Verizon and Vodafone have fully embraced AIOps and analytics via partnerships, acquisitions and Research and Development (R&D) initiatives and have moved into this space and challenged the traditional market leaders. And it will provide an overview of the latest Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) and their impact on the Analytics industry.

December: ITIC 2021 Technology and Business Outlook

Description: This Report will be based on ITIC survey results that poll IT administrators and C-level executives on a variety of forward looking business and technology issues for the 2020 timeframe. Topics covered will include: Security, IT staffing and budgets; application and network infrastructure upgrades; hardware and software purchasing trends and cloud computing.

Survey Methodology

ITIC conducts independent Web-based surveys that contain multiple choice and essay questions. In order to ensure the highest degree of accuracy, we employ authentication and tracking mechanisms to prohibit tampering with the survey results and to prohibit multiple votes by the same party. ITIC conducts surveys with corporate enterprises in North America and in over 25 countries worldwide across a wide range of vertical markets. Respondents range from SMBs with 25 to 100 workers to the largest multinational enterprises with over 100,000 employees. Each Report also includes two dozen first person customer interviews and where applicable, vendor and reseller interviews. The titles of the survey respondents include:

Network administrators
VPs of IT
Chief information officers (CIOs)
Chief technology officers (CTOs)
Chief executive officers (CEOs)
Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs)
Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs)
Consultants
Application developers
Database Administrators
Telecom Manager
Software Developer
System Administrator
IT Architect
Physical Plant Facilities Manager
Operations Manager
Technical Lead
Cloud Managers/Specialists
IoT Manager
Server Hardware/Virtualization Manager

ITIC welcomes input and suggestion from its vendor and enterprise clients with respect to surveys, survey questions and topics for its Editorial Calendar. If there are any particular topics or questions in a specific survey that you’d like to see covered, please let us know and we will do our best to address it.

About Information Technology Intelligence Corporation (ITIC)

ITIC, founded in 2002, is a research and consulting firm based in suburban Boston. It provides primary research on a wide variety of technology topics for vendors and enterprises. ITIC’s mission is to provide its clients with tactical, practical and actionable advice and to help clients make sense of the technology and business events that influence and impact their infrastructures and IT budgets. ITIC can provide your firm with accurate, objective research on a wide variety of technology topics within the network infrastructure: application software, server hardware, networking, virtualization, cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT) and Security (e.g. ransom ware, cyber heists, phishing scams, botnets etc.). ITIC also addresses the business issues that impact the various technologies and influence the corporate business purchasing decisions. These include topics such as licensing and contract negotiation; GDPR; Intellectual Property (IP); patents, outsourcing, third party technical support and upgrade/migration planning.

For more information visit ITIC’s website at: www.itic-corp.com.

To purchase or license ITIC Reports and Survey data contact: Fred Abbott

Email: fhabbott@valleyviewventures.com;

Valley View Ventures, Inc.

Phone: 978-254-1639

www.valleyviewventures.com

ITIC Editorial Calendar Read More »

ITIC 2020 Reliability Poll: IBM, Lenovo, HPE, Huawei Mission Critical Servers Deliver Highest Uptime, Availability

2020, 2021, ITIC Reports & Surveys, Laura's Insights ITIC Blog / By Laura DiDio

For the 12th straight year, IBM’s Z mainframe and Power Systems, achieved the highest server; server operating system reliability and server application availability rankings, along with Lenovo’s ThinkSystem servers which delivered the best uptime among all Intel x 86 servers for the last seven consecutive years, in ITIC’s 2020 Global Server Hardware and Server OS Reliability survey.
ITIC’s latest independent survey data finds that the most reliable mainstream server platforms – the IBM Power Systems, Lenovo ThinkSystem, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Huawei KunLun deliver up to 26x more uptime and availability than the least dependable unbranded “White box” servers.

The superior uptime of the above top ranked mission critical hardware makes them up to 34x more economical and cost effective than the least stable White box servers.

High end mission critical servers from IBM and Lenovo both registered under two (2) minutes of per server, per annum unplanned downtime due to inherent flaws in the underlying hardware or component parts. Cisco, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Huawei server platforms were close behind: each recorded approximately two minutes or a few seconds more downtime attributable to inherent issues with the hardware. Among mainstream servers, IBM POWER8 and POWER9, along with the Lenovo x86 ThinkSystem servers; the HPE Integrity Superdome X and Huawei’s mission critical KunLun servers continue to deliver the highest levels of reliability/uptime among 18 server platforms. (See Exhibit 1).

The least consistent hardware – unbranded White box servers – averaged 53 minutes of unplanned per server downtime due to problems or failures with the server or its components (e.g. hard drive, memory, cooling systems etc.). This represents an increase of four (4) minutes of downtime compared with ITIC’s 2019 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Mid-Year Update survey.
ITIC’s independent Web-based survey polled over 1,200 businesses worldwide from November 2019 through March 2020. The study compares and analyzes the reliability and availability of over one dozen mainstream server platforms and one dozen operating system (OS) distributions. To obtain the most accurate and unbiased results, ITIC accepts no vendor sponsorship.

IBM’s System Z server is in a class of its own. It maintained its best in class rating among all server platforms. An 83% majority of IBM respondent organizations said their firms achieved five and six nines – 99.999% and 99.9999% – or greater uptime. Nine-in-10 IBM Z customers reported that the mainframe recorded just 0.62 seconds of unplanned per server downtime each month and 7.44 seconds annually due to inherent flaws in the server hardware or its component parts. Less than one-half of one percent of IBM Z respondents said the mainframe experienced unplanned outages exceeding four (4) hours of annual downtime.

The economic annual downtime cost comparisons among the top performing and the least reliable server hardware platforms is staggering.

A single hour of downtime estimated at $300,000, equates to $4,998 per server/per minute.

According to that metric, organizations using the most reliable IBM POWER8 and POWER9; Lenovo x86-based ThinkSystem; HPE Integrity or Huawei KunLun servers that experienced just under or just over two (2) minutes would spend $9,996 in annual per server downtime costs due to inherent flaws in server hardware or component parts (See Table 2).

By contrast, corporations using Dell PowerEdge servers which experienced 26 minutes of per server/per minute downtime at the same $300,000 per hourly downtime rate potentially would rack up yearly outage costs of $130,026 for a single server.

Corporations deploying the least reliable unbranded White box servers that registered 53 minutes of per server, per minute downtime can expect to incur possible downtime losses of $264,894 specifically related to server hardware flaws and bugs in the OS and applications. The four additional minutes of downtime – from 49 minutes per server in ITIC’s 2019 poll, to 53 minutes of per server outage time in 2020, represents a cost increase of $19,992 compared with the White box server 2019 per server, per minute downtime price tag of $244,902.

Time is money.

The higher monetary costs associated with unbranded White box servers are not surprising. The unbranded White box servers frequently incorporate inexpensive components. And some businesses recklessly run unsupported or pirated versions of operating systems and applications. The aforementioned hourly downtime examples are for just one server. Downtime costs can mount quickly and reach into the millions for corporations with dozens or hundreds of highly unreliable servers.

Survey Highlights

Among the other top survey findings:

• Reliability: IBM Power Systems and Lenovo ThinkSystem hardware and the Linux operating system distributions were once again either first or second in every reliability category, including server, virtualization and security.
• Availability: IBM Z mainframe, Power Systems, Lenovo ThinkSystem, HPE Integrity and Huawei KunLun all provided the highest levels of server, applications and service availability. That is, when the servers did experience an outage due to an inherent system flaw, they were of the shortest duration – typically one-to-five minutes.
• Technical Support: Businesses gave high marks to IBM, Lenovo, HPE, Huawei and Dell tech support. Only 1% of IBM and Lenovo customers and 2% of HPE and Huawei users gave those vendors “Poor” or “Unsatisfactory” customer support ratings.
• Hard Drive Failures Most Common Technical Server Flaw: Faulty hard drives are the chief culprits in inherent server reliability/quality issues (58%) followed by Motherboard issues (43%) and processor problems (38%).
• IBM, Lenovo and Huawei KunLun Servers Had Fewest Hard Drive Failures: IBM, Lenovo and Huawei’s KunLun platforms experienced the fewest hard drive quality or failure issues among all of the server distributions within the first one, two and three years of service. Less than one percent – 0.4% – of IBM Z mainframes, for example, experienced technical problems with their hard drives in the first year of usage, followed by the IBM Power Systems and Lenovo ThinkSystem with one percent (1%) each during the first 12 months of deployment.
• Security is Top External Issue Negatively Impacting Reliability: Security and data breaches now have the dubious distinction of being the top cause of downtime.
• Minimum Reliability Requirements Increase: An 88%majority of corporations now require a minimum of “four nines” of uptime – 99.99% for mission critical hardware, operating systems and main line of business (LOB) applications. This in an increase of five (5) percentage points from ITIC’s 2018 Reliability survey.
• Patch Time Increases: Seven-in-10 businesses now devote from one hour to over four hours applying patches. This is primarily due to a spike in wide ranging security issues such as Email Phishing scams, Ransomware, CEO fraud as well as malware and viruses.
• Increased Server Workloads Cause Reliability Declines: The survey data found that reliability declined in 67% of servers over four (4) years old, when corporations failed to retrofit or upgrade the hardware to accommodate increased workloads and larger, more compute intensive applications. This is up 23% from the 45% of businesses that said uptime declined due to higher workloads in the ITIC 2018 Reliability poll.
• Hourly Downtime Costs Rise: A 98% majority of firms say hourly downtime costs exceed $150,000 and 88% of respondents estimate hourly downtime expenses exceed $300,000. Just over one-third of ITIC survey respondents – 34% – estimate the cost of a single hour of downtime now tops one million ($1,000.000).

Server hardware, server operating system – and by extension, virtualization reliability, uptime and availability are the core foundational elements of the overarching health of an organization’s entire Digital Age ecosystem and the life blood of daily business operations.

The core reliability of corporate servers, server operating systems and the mission critical applications that run on them are absolutely imperative. The inherent reliability of enterprise hardware, OS and applications are necessary to maintain daily, uninterrupted business operations; ensure secure access to proprietary assets; mitigate risk and drive revenue.

ITIC 2020 Reliability Poll: IBM, Lenovo, HPE, Huawei Mission Critical Servers Deliver Highest Uptime, Availability Read More »

ITIC 2020 Editorial Calendar

2019, 2020, Editorial Calendars / By Laura DiDio

March/April 2020: ITIC 2020 Global Server Hardware and Server OS Reliability Survey

The 2020 ITIC Global Reliability Survey has also been updated and expanded to include questions on:

Component level failure data comparisons between IBM Power Servers and Intel-based x86 servers such as Dell, HP, Huawei, Lenovo and Cisco.
Percentage of component level failure data comparisons by vendor according to age (e.g. new to three months; three to six months; six months to 1 year; 1 to 2 years; 2 to 3 years; 3 to 4 years; 4 to 5 years; over five years).
Which component parts fail and frequency of failure
A percentage breakout of server parts failures for parts such as hard disk drives(HDD), processors, memory, power components, fans, or other
Where available, how the component failed. For example: memory multi-bit errors, HDD read failures, processor L1/L2 cache errors, etc.

April/May: 2020 Hourly Cost of Downtime

May/June 2020: ITIC Sexual Harassment, Gender Bias and Pay Equity Survey

July/August: 2020 IoT Deployment and Usage Trends Survey and Report

August: ITIC 2020-2021 Security Trends

Security threats in the age of COVID-19
The most prevalent type of security hacks
The percentage of corporations that experienced a security hack
The duration of the security hack
The severity of the security hack
The cost of the security hack
Monetary losses experienced due to security breaches
Lost, damaged, destroyed or stolen data due to a security breach
The percentage of time that corporations spend securing their networks and data assets
Specific security policies and procedures companies are implementing
The issues that pose the biggest threats/risks to corporate security

August/September: ITIC 2020 Global Server Hardware Server OS Reliability Survey Mid-Year Update

October/November: AI, Machine Learning and Data Analytics Market Outlook

December: ITIC 2021 Technology and Business Outlook

Survey Methodology

Network administrators
VPs of IT
Chief information officers (CIOs)
Chief technology officers (CTOs)
Chief executive officers (CEOs)
Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs)
Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs)
Consultants
Application developers
Database Administrators
Telecom Manager
Software Developer
System Administrator
IT Architect
Physical Plant Facilities Manager
Operations Manager
Technical Lead
Cloud Managers/Specialists
IoT Manager
Server Hardware/Virtualization Manager

About Information Technology Intelligence Corporation (ITIC)

To purchase or license ITIC Reports and Survey data contact: Fred Abbott

Email: fhabbott@valleyviewventures.com;

Valley View Ventures, Inc.

Phone: 978-254-1639

www.valleyviewventures.com

ITIC 2020 Editorial Calendar Read More »

ITIC Poll: Human Error and Security are Top Issues Negatively Impacting Reliability

2018, ITIC Reports & Surveys, Laura's Insights ITIC Blog / By Laura DiDio

Multiple issues contribute to the high reliability ratings among the various server hardware distributions. ITIC’s 2018 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Mid-Year Update reveals that three issues in particular stand out as positively or negatively impacting reliability. They are: Human Error, Security and increased workloads.

ITIC’s 2018 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Mid Year Update polled over 800 customers worldwide from April through mid-July 2018. In order to obtain the most objective and unbiased results, ITIC accepted no vendor sponsorship for the Web-based survey.

Human Error and Security Are Biggest Reliability Threats

ITIC’s latest 2018 Reliability Mid Year update poll also chronicled the strain that external issues placed on organizations and their IT departments to ensure that the servers and operating systems deliver a high degree of reliability and availability. As Exhibit 1 illustrates, human error and security (both from internal and external hacks) continue to rank as the chief culprits that cause unplanned downtime among servers, operating systems and applications for the fourth straight year. After that, there is a drop off of 22 to 30 percentage points for the remaining issues ranked in the top five downtime causes. Both human error and reliability have had the dubious distinction of maintaining the top two factors precipitating unplanned downtime in the past five ITIC reliability polls.

Analysis

Reliability is a two-way street in which server hardware, OS and application vendors as well as corporate users both bear responsibility for the reliability of their systems and networks.

On the vendor side, there are obvious reasons why hardware makers like HPE, IBM and Lenovo mission critical servers consistently gain top reliability ratings. As ITIC noted in Part 1 of its reliability survey findings, the reliability gap between high end systems and inexpensive, commodity servers with basic features continue to grow. They include:

Research and Development (R&D) Vendors like Cisco, HPE, Huawei, IBM and Lenovo have made an ongoing commitment to research and development (R&D) and continually refresh/update their solutions.
RAS 2.0.The higher end servers incorporate the latest Reliability, Accessibility and Serviceability (RAS) 2.0 features/functions and are fine-tuned for manageability and security.
Price is not the top consideration. Businesses that purchase higher end mission critical and x86 systems like Fujitsu’s Primergy, HPE’s Integrity, Huawei’s KunLun, IBM Z and Power Systems and Lenovo System x want a best in class product offering, first and foremost. These corporations in verticals like banking/finance, government, healthcare, manufacturing, retail and utilities are more motivated with the historical ability of the vendor to act as a true responsive “partner” delivering a highly robust, leading edge hardware. They also want top-notch after market technical service and support, quick response to problems and fast, efficient access to patches and fixes.
More experienced IT Managers. In general, IT Managers, application developers, systems engineers and security professionals at corporations which purchase higher end servers from IBM, HPE, Lenovo, and Huawei tend to have more experience. The survey found that organizations that buy mission critical servers have IT and technical staff that boast approximately 12 to 13 years experience. By contrast, the average experience among IT managers and systems engineers at companies that purchase less expensive commodity based servers is about six years.

Highly experienced IT managers are more likely to spot problems before they become a major issue and lead to downtime and in the event of an outage. They are also more likely to perform faster remediation, accelerating the time it takes to identify the problem and get the servers and applications up and running faster than less experienced peers.

In an era of increasingly connected servers, systems, applications, networks and people, there are myriad factors that can potentially undercut reliability; they are:

Human Error and Security. To reiterate, these two factors constitute the top threats to reliability. ITIC does not anticipate this changing in the foreseeable future. Some 59% of respondents cited Human Error as their number one issue, followed by 51% that said Security problems caused downtime. And nearly two-thirds — 62% — of businesses indicated that their Security and IT administrators grapple with a near constant deluge of more pervasive and pernicious security threats. If the availability, reliability and access to servers, operating systems and mission critical main LOB applications is compromised or denied, end user productivity and business operations suffer immediate consequences.
Heavier, more data intensive workloads. The latest ITIC survey data finds that workloads have increased by 14% to 39% over the past 18 months.
A 60% majority of respondents say increased workloads negatively impact reliability; up 15% percentage points since 2017. Of that 60%, approximately 80% of firms experiencing reliability declines have commodity servers: e.g., White box; older Dell, HPE ProLiant and Oracle hardware >3 ½ years old that haven’t been retrofitted/upgraded.
Provisioning complex new applications that must integrate and interoperate with legacy systems and applications. Some 40% of survey respondents rate application deployment and provisioning as among their biggest challenges and one that can negatively impact reliability.
IT Departments Spending More Time Applying Patches. Some 54% of those polled indicated they are spending upwards of one hour to over four hours applying patches – especially security patches. Users said the security patches are large, time consuming and often complex, necessitating that they test and apply them manually. The percentage of firms automatically applying patches commensurately decreased from 30% in 2016 to just 9% in the latest 2018 poll. Overall, the latest ITIC survey shows that as of July 2018 companies are applying 27% more patches now than any time since 2015.
Deploying new technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data Analytics which require special expertise by IT managers and application developers as well as a high degree of compatibility and interoperability.
A rise in Internet of Things (IoT) and edge computing deployments which in turn, increase the number of connections that organizations and their IT departments must oversee and manage.
Seven-in-10 or 71%of survey respondents said aged hardware (3 ½+ years old) had a negative impact on server uptime and reliability compared with just 16% that said the older servers had not experienced any declines in reliability or availability. This is an increase of five percentage points from the 66% of those polled who responded positively to that survey question in the ITIC 2017 Reliability Survey and it’s a 27% increase from the 44% who said outmoded hardware negatively impacted uptime in the ITIC 2014 Reliability poll.

Corporations Minimum Reliability Requirements Rise

At the same time, corporations now require higher levels of reliability than they did even two o three years ago. The reliability and continuous operation of the core infrastructure and its component parts: server hardware, server operating system software, applications and other devices (e.g. firewalls, unified communications devices and uninterruptible power supply) are more crucial than ever to the organization’s bottom line.

It is clear that corporations – from the smallest companies with fewer than 25 people, to the largest multinational concerns with over one hundred thousand employees, are more risk averse and concerned about the potential risk for lawsuits and the damage to their reputation in the wake of an outage. ITIC’s survey data now indicates that an 84% majority of organizations now require a minimum of “four nines” – 99.99% reliability and uptime.

This is the equivalent of 52 minutes of unplanned outages related to downtime for mission critical systems and applications or just 4.33 minutes of unplanned monthly outage for servers, applications and networks.

Conclusions

The vendors are one-half of the equation. Corporate users also bear responsibility for the reliability of their servers and applications based on configuration, utilization, provisioning, management and security.

To minimize downtime and increase system and network availability it is imperative that corporations work with vendor partners to ensure that reliability and uptime are inherent features of all their servers, network connectivity devices, applications and mobile devices. This requires careful tactical and strategic planning to construct a solid strategy.

Human error and security are and will continue to pose the greatest threats to the underlying reliability and stability of server hardware, operating systems and applications. A key element of every firm’s reliability strategy and initiative is to obtain the necessary training and certification for IT managers, engineers and security professionals. Companies should also have their security professionals take security awareness training. Engaging the services of third party vendors to conduct security vulnerability testing to identify and eliminate potential vulnerabilities is also highly recommended. Corporations must also deploy the appropriate Auditing, BI and network monitoring tools. Every 21^st Century network environment needs continuous, comprehensive end-to-end monitoring for their complex, distributed applications in physical, virtual and cloud environments.

Ask yourself: “How much reliability does the infrastructure require and how much risk can the company safely tolerate?”

ITIC Poll: Human Error and Security are Top Issues Negatively Impacting Reliability Read More »

ITIC 2018 Server Reliability Mid-Year Update: IBM Z, IBM Power, Lenovo System x, HPE Integrity Superdome & Huawei KunLun Deliver Highest Uptime

2018, ITIC Reports & Surveys / By Laura DiDio

August 8, 2018

For the tenth straight year, IBM and Lenovo servers again achieved top rankings in ITIC’s 2017 – 2018 Global Server Hardware and Server OS Reliability survey.

IBM’s Z Systems Enterprise server is in a class of its own. The IBM mainframe continues to exhibit peerless reliability besting all competitors. The Z recorded less than 10 seconds of unplanned per server downtime each month. Additionally less than one-half of one percent of all IBM Z customers reported unplanned outages that totaled greater than four (4) hours of system downtime in a single year.

Among mainstream servers, IBM Power Systems 7 and 8 and the Lenovo x86 X6 mission critical hardware consistently deliver the highest levels of reliability/uptime among 14 server hardware and 11 different mainstream server hardware virtualization platforms. Each platform averaged just 2.1 minutes of unplanned per annum/per server downtime (See Exhibit 1).

That makes the IBM Power Systems and Lenovo x 86 servers approximately 17 to 18 times more stable and available, than the least reliable distributions – the rival Oracle and HPE ProLiant servers.

Additionally, the latest ITIC survey results indicate just one percent of IBM Power Systems and Lenovo System x servers experienced over four (4) hours of unplanned annual downtime. This is the best showing among the 14 different server platforms surveyed.

ITIC’s 10^th annual independent ITIC 2017 – 2018 Global Server Hardware and Server OS Reliability survey polled 800 organizations worldwide from August through December 2017. In order to obtain the most accurate and unbiased results, ITIC accepted no vendor sponsorship. …

ITIC 2018 Server Reliability Mid-Year Update: IBM Z, IBM Power, Lenovo System x, HPE Integrity Superdome & Huawei KunLun Deliver Highest UptimeRead More »

ITIC 2018 Server Reliability Mid-Year Update: IBM Z, IBM Power, Lenovo System x, HPE Integrity Superdome & Huawei KunLun Deliver Highest Uptime Read More »

IBM, Lenovo Servers Deliver Top Reliability, Cisco UCS, HPE Integrity Gain

2017, ITIC Reports & Surveys, Laura's Insights ITIC Blog / By Laura DiDio

IBM z Systems Enterprise; IBM Power Systems Servers Most Reliable for Ninth Straight Year; Lenovo x86 Servers Deliver Highest Uptime/Availability among all Intel x86-based Systems

For the ninth year in a row, corporate enterprise users said IBM’s z Systems Enterprise mainframe class server achieved near flawless reliability, recording less than 10 seconds of unplanned per server downtime each month. Among mainstream servers, IBM Power Systems devices and the Lenovo x86 platform delivered the highest levels of reliability/uptime among 14 server hardware and 11 different server hardware virtualization platforms.

Those are the results of the ITIC 2017 Global Server Hardware and Server OS Reliability survey which polled 750 organizations worldwide during April/May 2017.

Among the top survey findings:

IBM z Systems Enterprise mainframe class systems, had the lowest incident – 0% — of > 4 hours of per server/per annum downtime of any hardware platform. Specifically, IBM z Systems mainframe class servers exhibit true mainframe fault tolerance experiencing just 0.96 minutes of of unplanned per server annual downtime. That equates to 8 seconds per month or “blink and you miss it,” 2 seconds of unplanned weekly downtime. This is an improvement over the 1.12 minutes of per server/per annum downtime the z Systems servers recorded in ITIC’s 2016 – 2017 Reliability poll nine months ago.
Among mainstream hardware platforms, IBM Power Systems and Lenovo System x running Linux have least amount of unplanned downtime 2.5 and 2.8 minutes per server/per year of any mainstream Linux server platforms.
88% of IBM Power Systems and 87% of Lenovo System x users running RHEL, SuSE or Ubuntu Linux experience fewer than one unplanned outage per server, per year.
Tenly two percent of IBM and Lenovo servers recorded >4 hours of unplanned per server/per annum downtime; followed by six percent of HPE servers; eight percent of Dell servers and 10% of Oracle servers.
IBM and Lenovo hardware and the Linux operating system distributions were either first or second in every reliability category, including virtualization and security.
Lenovo x86 servers achieved the highest reliability ratings among all competing x86 platforms
Lenovo Takes Top Marks for Technical Service and Support: Lenovo tech support the best followed by Cisco and IBM
Some 66% of survey respondents said aged hardware (3 ½+ years old) had a negative impact on server uptime and reliability vs. 21% that said it has not impacted reliability/uptime. This is 22% increase from the 44% who said outmoded hardware negatively impacted uptime in 2014
Reliability continues to decline for the fifth year in a row on the HP ProLiant and Oracle’s SPARC & x86 hardware and Solaris OS. Reliability on the Oracle platforms declined slightly mainly due to aging. Many Oracle hardware customers are eschewing upgrades, opting instead to migrate to rival platforms.
Some 16% of Oracle customers rated service & support as Poor or Unsatisfactory. Dissatisfaction with Oracle licensing and pricing policies remains consistently high for the last three years.
Only 1% of Cisco, 1% of Dell, 1% of IBM and Lenovo, 3% of HP, 3% of Fujitsu and 4% of Toshiba users gave those vendors “Poor” or “Unsatisfactory” customer support ratings.

…

IBM, Lenovo Servers Deliver Top Reliability, Cisco UCS, HPE Integrity GainRead More »

IBM, Lenovo Servers Deliver Top Reliability, Cisco UCS, HPE Integrity Gain Read More »

IBM, Lenovo Top ITIC 2016 Reliability Poll; Cisco Comes on Strong

2016, ITIC Reports & Surveys / By Laura DiDio

IBM Power Systems Servers Most Reliable for Seventh Straight Year; Lenovo x86 Servers Deliver Highest Uptime/Availability among all Intel x86-based Systems; Cisco UCS Stays Strong; Dell Reliability Ratchets Up; Intel Xeon Processor E7 v3 chips incorporate advanced analytics; significantly boost reliability of x86-based servers

In 2016 and beyond, infrastructure reliability is more essential than ever.

The overall health of network operations, applications, management and security functions all depend on the core foundational elements: server hardware, server operating systems and virtualization to deliver high availability, robust management and solid security. The reliability of the server, server OS and virtualization platforms are the cornerstones of the entire network infrastructure. The individual and collective reliability of these platforms have a direct, immediate and long lasting impact on daily operations and business results. For the seventh year in a row, corporate enterprise users said IBM server hardware delivered the highest levels of reliability/uptime among 14 server hardware and 11 different server hardware virtualization platforms. A 61% majority of IBM Power Systems servers and Lenovo System x servers achieved “five nines” or 99.999% availability – the equivalent of 5.25 minutes of unplanned per server /per annum downtime compared to 46% of Hewlett-Packard servers and 40% of Oracle server hardware. …

IBM, Lenovo Top ITIC 2016 Reliability Poll; Cisco Comes on StrongRead More »

IBM, Lenovo Top ITIC 2016 Reliability Poll; Cisco Comes on Strong Read More »

IBM, Dell, Fujitsu & Stratus Get Highest Marks in ITIC Reliability Survey

ITIC Reports & Surveys / By Laura DiDio

For the fifth year in a row, IBM servers delivered the highest levels of reliability and uptime among 14 server platforms.

Those are the results of the latest independent ITIC 2013 Global Server Hardware and Server OS Reliability Survey which polled C-level executives and IT managers at over 550 organizations worldwide from August 2012 through January 2013.

Among the high-end mainframe class systems, both the IBM System z and the Stratus Technologies’ ftServer 6310 delivered the highest inherent reliability: both had no instances – 0% – of the most severe Tier 3 outages lasting four hours or more of duration. Among the mainstream “work horse” servers, IBM’s Power Systems recorded the least amount of unplanned downtime, approximately 13 minutes per server/per year. By contrast, some 6 percent of organizations using Oracle (formerly Sun Microsystems) x86-based servers experienced of over four (4) hours of per server/per annum downtime. This was the highest percentage of lengthy Tier 3 server outages among the 14 platforms surveyed. …

IBM, Dell, Fujitsu & Stratus Get Highest Marks in ITIC Reliability SurveyRead More »

IBM, Dell, Fujitsu & Stratus Get Highest Marks in ITIC Reliability Survey Read More »

ITIC 2011 Reliability Shows that Dell, HP, IBM & Stratus Score High Marks for Service & Support

ITIC Reports & Surveys / By Laura DiDio

Dell, HP, IBM and Stratus Technologies won high praise from corporate users for their prompt and efficient after market technical service and support in the latest ITIC 2010-2011 Global Server Hardware and Server OS Reliability survey.

The results came from a broad based survey that polled organizations worldwide on the reliability, security and technical service and support from among 14 of the leading server hardware platforms and 18 of the most widely deployed server operating system distributions.

As we said in an earlier discussion, each poll elicits some surprising and unexpected revelations. In this survey, users reserved their highest encomiums and most critical barbs for the server hardware vendors – both in terms of product performance and reliability and the service and support they receive from their respective vendors. …

ITIC 2011 Reliability Shows that Dell, HP, IBM & Stratus Score High Marks for Service & SupportRead More »

ITIC 2011 Reliability Shows that Dell, HP, IBM & Stratus Score High Marks for Service & Support Read More »

Survey Methodology

Survey Methodology

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