Huawei KunLun

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 »

IBM, Lenovo and Huawei Servers Most Secure, Suffer Fewest Hacks As COVID-19 Data Breaches Surge

2021, ITIC Reports & Surveys / By Laura DiDio

IBM, Lenovo, Huawei, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and Cisco hardware are the most secure and reliable servers. These platforms experienced the fewest successful hacks and recorded the least amount of unplanned downtime due to data breaches among mainstream servers in the last year.

Those are the results of the latest ITIC Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability and Security survey which polled over 1,000 businesses worldwide across 28 different vertical market sectors from October 2020 through March 2021.

The most recent ITIC survey statistics indicate that reliability and security are closely intertwined and even symbiotic. The top five most reliable server platforms: the IBM Z, the IBM Power Systems, Lenovo ThinkSystem, Huawei KunLun and Fusion Servers, the HPE Superdome Integrity and Cisco UCS (in that order) also boast the strongest security.

ITIC’s most recent Global Security poll similarly found that IBM, Lenovo, Huawei and HPE mission critical servers experienced the lowest percentages of downtime due to successful security hacks and data breaches.

The IBM Z mainframe outpaced all other server distributions and is in a class of its own as it achieved its most robust security and reliability ratings to date in the latest ITIC study.

Only a miniscule – 0.3% – of IBM Z high end servers, suffered a successful data breach. Among other mainstream hardware platforms, just four percent (4%) of IBM Power Systems and Lenovo ThinkSystem users reported their systems were successfully hacked, while five percent (5%) of Huawei KunLun and HPE Integrity Superdome server customers reported a security breach between March 2020 and April 2021.

Just over one-in-ten or 11% of Cisco UCS servers were successfully hacked. Cisco’s hardware performed extremely well, particularly when one considers that many of the UCS servers are deployed in remote locations and at the network edge, which frequently are the first line of defense and take the brunt of hack attacks. Unbranded White box servers were the most vulnerable to security penetrations: 44% of ITIC survey respondents reported they were successfully hacked.

The global pandemic sparked a wave of COVID-19 related data breaches, ransomware, phishing, Business Email Compromise (BEC), CEO fraud and attacks that continue unabated.

Overall, ITIC’s survey findings indicate that there is a clear and widening gap in server hardware security and reliability among the top performing platforms and the most insecure offerings. The global pandemic sparked a wave of COVID-19 related data breaches, ransomware, phishing, Business Email Compromise (BEC), CEO fraud and attacks that continue unabated.

Security and reliability issues are closely intertwined: a successful data breach immediately compromises server, application and network uptime and availability. Security will likely persist as the chief threat that causes expensive unplanned downtime and outages.

Survey Highlights

Notably, despite a 31% spike in security hacks and data breaches during the COVID-19 pandemic over the last 16 months, IBM, Lenovo, Huawei, HPE and Cisco maintained their top positions as the most reliable and secure server platforms.

Additionally, the top five server distributions achieved the best security ratings of among all mainstream server hardware platforms in every security category in ITIC’s latest poll, including:

The least number of attempted security hacks/data breaches
The fewest number of successful security hacks/data breaches
The fastest Mean Time to Detection (MTTD) from the onset of the attack until the company isolated and shut it down

The strong security results posted by IBM, Lenovo, Huawei, HPE and Cisco (in that order) are especially noteworthy since they occurred during the height of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Some 31% of ITIC survey respondents said their servers, operating systems and critical business applications suffered successful penetrations by myriad security hacks and data breaches since the outset of COVID-19 in early 2020. This is an increase of 12 percentage points, up from the 19% in ITIC’s 2020 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability survey.

Security is a core component of every organization’s network. Robust security is even more crucial in the COVID-19 era which ushered in a variety of new scams. Some 69% of organizations cited security and data breaches as the greatest threats to the reliability of server, application, data center, network edge and cloud ecosystems. The hacks themselves are more targeted, prevalent, pervasive and pernicious: They are designed to inflict maximum damage and losses on their enterprise and consumer victims.

Data Breaches are Big Business

Data breaches are big business and a primary business for the burgeoning professional hacking community. A successful hack is expensive on many levels. In 2020, the cost of a data breach averaged $3.86 million, according to the 2020 Cost of a Data Breach Study jointly conducted by IBM and the Ponemon Institute[1]. This represents a 10% increase since 2015.

ITIC’s latest survey data also indicates that the Hourly Cost of Downtime now exceeds $300,000 for 88% of businesses. Overall, 40% of mid-sized and large enterprise survey respondents reported that a single hour of downtime, costs their firms over one million ($1 million). A data breach that occurs during peak usage hours and interrupts crucial business operations can cost businesses millions per minute.

Besides the obvious monetary losses due to productivity and disrupted operations, businesses must factor in amount of manpower hours and the number of IT and security administrators involved in remediation efforts and full return to operation. Companies must also determine whether or not any data or intellectual property (IP) was lost, stolen, damaged, destroyed or changed. Organizations must also add in the cost of any litigation as well as potential civil or criminal fines/penalties associated with security incidents and data breaches. Some costs, like damage to an organization’s reputation are incalculable and may result in lost business.

Hackers pick and choose their targets with great precision and are quick to take advantage of every opportunity. The COVID-19 pandemic is a prime example. Hackers immediately set their sights on teleworkers and remote learning students taking online and Zoom classes. They zeroed in on so-called “soft targets.” Local and state municipalities; small and mid-sized school districts, hospitals, health care clinics, doctors’ offices and branch bank offices that may lack full-time onsite security and IT administrators and may not have installed the latest security.

It’s no surprise that vendors like IBM, Lenovo, Huawei, HPE, which perennially achieve top server reliability ratings were also among the most secure hardware platforms. These vendors and more recently Cisco, have made server security – and in Lenovo’s case server, PC and laptop security – a top priority and have invested heavily in bolstering the inherent security of their product offerings over the last several years. So when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, they already had strong, embedded security and this stood them and their customers in good stead.

The most secure server hardware platforms experienced the fewest successful security breaches. The IBM Z running the z/OS and RHEL Linux and IBM LinuxONE III respondents all said those platforms had no successful security hacks over the 16 months. They were followed by the IBM Power Systems and Linux ThinkSystem servers with one each; Huawei KunLun which averaged two hacks; the HPE Integrity with three successful penetrations and Cisco’s UCS servers with seven data breaches. The unbranded White box servers were the most porous, averaging 20 successful data breaches in the past 16 months.

Data breaches are big business. And they are expensive. The average cost of a data breach in 2020 is $3.86 million, according to the latest 2020 Cost of a Data Breach Study jointly conducted by IBM and the Ponemon Institute[2]. While the report indicates that the average data breach cost declined by a slight 1.5% compared with 2019’s study, the $3.86 million figure still represents a 10% increase since 2015.

A DTEX Systems Report found that “only 30% of organizations were prepared to secure a complete shift to remote work.” The DTEX Systems study also found that almost 75% of organizations are concerned about the security risks introduced by users working from home and 73% of businesses admitted they have partial or no visibility into user activity if their VPN is disabled by remote workers. Another alarming finding is that teleworkers use their work laptops for personal use; with 25% of respondents acknowledging this increases the risk of drive-by-downloads, with 15% saying their firms are more susceptible to Phishing attacks.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Security is now the number one issue that negatively undermines the reliability of server hardware, server OS and business critical applications. All organizations should make security a priority and work closely with their vendors to mitigate security risks to an acceptable level.

Every added second and minute of server downtime and application unavailability negatively impacts business operations, employee productivity and revenue.

No server platform, server OS or business application will provide foolproof security. However, IBM, Lenovo, Huawei, HPE and Cisco which are among the most reliable server platforms also provide the greatest levels of inherent security. This enables customers to achieve the greatest economies of scale and safeguard their sensitive IP and data assets. That said, security is a 50/50 proposition. While vendors must deliver robust security, corporations are responsible for maintaining the reliability of their server and overarching network infrastructure. ITIC strongly advise businesses to:

Take inventory of all devices and applications across the ecosystem.
Conduct security vulnerability testing at least annually and work with third party experts.
Have a remediation and governance plan in place in the event your firm is successfully hacked.
Ensure that Security and IT professionals receive adequate training.
Ensure that end users as well as contract workers and temporary employees receive adequate security awareness training on the latest Email and Phishing scams and ransomware threats.
Implement strong security policies and procedures and enforce them.
Regularly replace, retrofit and refresh server hardware and server operating systems with the necessary patches, updates and security fixes as needed to maintain system health.
Keep up-to-date on the latest security patches and fixes.
Ensure that your firm’s hardware and software vendors and cloud vendors meet or exceed the terms of their Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for agreed upon security and reliability levels.

[1] “2020 Cost of a Data Breach Study,” IBM and the Ponemon Institute. URL: https://www.ibm.com/security/data-breach

[2] “2020 Cost of a Data Breach Study,” IBM and the Ponemon Institute. URL: https://www.ibm.com/security/data-breach

IBM, Lenovo and Huawei Servers Most Secure, Suffer Fewest Hacks As COVID-19 Data Breaches Surge 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 »

IBM, Lenovo, HPE and Huawei Servers Maintain Top Reliability Rankings; Cisco Makes Big Gains IBM, Lenovo hardware up to 24x more reliable; 28x more economical vs. least reliable White box servers

2019, ITIC Reports & Surveys / By Laura DiDio

ITIC’s latest 2019 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Mid-Year Update survey results indicate that mission critical servers from IBM, Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Huawei all maintained their top positions, achieving “four to six nines” of uptime.
These findings come at a time when businesses’ demand for high reliability and continuous, uninterrupted data access is at an all-time high.
ITIC’s latest 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 24x more uptime and availability than the least dependable unbranded “White box” servers. Additionally, the superior uptime of the above top ranked mission critical hardware makes them up to 28x more economical and cost effective than the least stable White box servers.
High end mission critical server distributions from IBM, Lenovo, HPE and Huawei each recorded just under or approximately two (2) minutes of per server, per annum unplanned downtime due to inherent flaws in the underlying hardware or component parts (See Exhibit 1). By contrast, the least consistent hardware – unbranded White box servers – averaged 49 minutes of unplanned per server, per annum downtime due to problems or failures with the server or its components (e.g. hard drive, memory, cooling systems etc.).
Server hardware reliability directly impacts ongoing daily business transactions and productivity. There are immediate monetary costs associated with server outages of even a few minutes. The disparity in the annual downtime cost comparisons among the top performing and the least reliable server hardware, is eye-opening.

A single hour of downtime calculated at $100,000 equates to $1,667 per server/per minute.

Corporations that deploy the most highly reliable servers: the IBM Power Systems; Lenovo ThinkSystem; HPE Superdome and Huawei KunLun (in that order) that averaged just under or about two (2) minutes of unplanned per server downtime, potentially could expect to lose approximately $3,000 per server/per minute for an hour of downtime calculated at a very conservative $100,000. By contrast, businesses that deploy the least reliable unbranded White box servers which recorded 49 minutes of unplanned per server annual downtime due to the inherent hardware instability could potentially lose $81,683 based on hourly downtime costs of $100,000. The superior economics of the most reliable versus least reliable servers is even more apparent for businesses that estimate or calculate hourly downtime losses of $300,000; $500,000 or $1,000,000 or higher.

Servers are the bedrock upon which the entire network infrastructure and extended network ecosystem rests. When servers fail, data access is denied. Business stops. Productivity ceases. Revenue suffers.

Some 86% of organizations now require a minimum 99.99% reliability for their firms’ server hardware, operating systems and main line-of-business applications to ensure productivity and deliver uninterrupted data access. High reliability and availability also safeguards the corporation’s daily operations, business processes and revenue stream.

IBM Z, IBM POWER, Lenovo ThinkSystem, HPE Integrity and Huawei KunLun Servers Maintain Highest Uptime Rankings

The latest ITIC 2019 Reliability Mid-Year Update survey polled over 800 corporations from July through early September. The study compared the reliability and availability of over one dozen of the most widely deployed mainstream server platforms and one dozen operating system (OS) distributions. ITIC’s latest study updated a select subset of the survey questions from its annual 2019 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability poll. The poll also tracked the impact of pivotal issues like security, human error, software flaws and aging server hardware on corporate server reliability. To obtain the most accurate and unbiased results, ITIC accepted no vendor sponsorship.

Organizations conduct business 24 x 7 irrespective of time or location, 365 days a year. Corporations continue to expand their operations into the cloud and connect people, applications and devices via the Internet of Things (IoT). Applications like Analytics, AI and Business Intelligence (BI) are complex and compute intensive. They place greater demands on the server hardware. The corporate workforce is increasingly mobile. Users access data from myriad devices. Companies require fast, efficient processing and throughput. It must be secure by design, secure in use, secure in transmission and secure at rest.

To reiterate, all of the high end mission critical servers maintained their top ranked positions from ITIC’s earlier 2019 Global Server Hardware Server OS Reliability Survey published in the first calendar quarter of this year.
The IBM Z mainframe system is in a class of its own, delivering true fault tolerance – “six nines” – 99.9999% uptime to 89% of enterprise users. It delivered imperceptible instances of inherent server failure – 0.74 seconds per/server due to any inherent flaws in the server hardware.

Among the mainstream server distributions, IBM’s Power Systems topped the poll, registering a record low of 1.75 minutes per server downtime followed very closely by the Lenovo Think System servers with 1.88 minutes of per server downtime due to any flaws in the server hardware. Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) Superdome X, Huawei’s KunLun FusionServer x86 platforms each recorded 2 minutes of server downtime due to any underlying problems with the server hardware.
Each of these distributions delivered a solid “five nines,” 99.999% of inherent hardware reliability. These leading edge server platforms experienced minimal amounts of unplanned downtime due to flaws in the server hardware or any of its component parts.
ITIC’s 2019 Reliability Mid-Year Update Survey did deliver a few surprises. Cisco Systems’ Unified Computing System (UCS) servers – which are frequently deployed at the network edge – showed a marked improvement in reliability. The Cisco UCS servers reduced per server/per annum downtime by nearly 50% from the 4.1 minutes in ITIC’s prior first quarter reliability survey to 2.3 minutes in the latest poll.
ITIC’s Mid-Year Update survey for the first time also included uptime statistics for Inspur Systems, headquartered in Jinan, China as one of the top five server vendors worldwide in terms of shipments. Inspur server offerings scored in the middle range of hardware platforms with 9.1 minutes of unplanned downtime.

Metrics of three, four and five nines of uptime – 99.9%, 99.99% and 99.999%, – equate to 8.76 hours; 4.38 hours, 52.56 and 5.26 minutes of per server/per annum downtime, respectively.

IBM, Lenovo, HPE and Huawei Servers Maintain Top Reliability Rankings; Cisco Makes Big Gains IBM, Lenovo hardware up to 24x more reliable; 28x more economical vs. least reliable White box servers Read More »

IBM Power Systems, Lenovo System x and ThinkSystem, HPE Integrity and Huawei KunLun Top ITIC 2019 Server Reliability Poll

2019, ITIC Reports & Surveys / By Laura DiDio

ITIC’s 2019 Global Server Hardware and Server OS Reliability Survey finds that for the 11th straight year, the IBM Z and IBM Power Systems achieved the highest server reliability rankings with Lenovo’s System x and Lenovo ThinkSystem servers, delivering the best uptime among all x86 servers for the sixth year in a row. Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) Integrity and Huawei’s KunLun mission critical servers continue to make impressive gains and have also moved up in reliability.

The ITIC independent annual, Web-based survey polled over 1,000 businesses worldwide from October 2018 through January 2019. It compared the reliability and availability of 18 different server platforms and one dozen operating system (OS) distributions. To obtain the most accurate and unbiased results, ITIC accepted no vendor sponsorship.

IBM’s Z is in a class of its own: 83% of respondents said their firms achieved five and six nines – 99.999% and 99.9999% – or greater uptime; that’s about 8.8 seconds annually due to inherent flaws in the server or component parts.

Among mainstream servers, IBM POWER8 and IBM POWER9, along with the Lenovo System x and ThinkSystem servers, HPE Integrity; and Huawei’s mission critical KunLun platforms delivered the highest levels of uptime. Each platform averaged just under or approximately two (2) minutes of unplanned per annum/per server downtime due to inherent quality issues involving the server or components like hard disk or memory flaws.

Among the other top survey findings:

Availability:The IBM Z and IBM Power Systems, Lenovo’s x86 serverportfolio, HPE Integrity and Huawei KunLunall provided the highest levels of server, application 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. Eight-in-10 respondents rated IBM and Lenovo support as “Excellent” or “Very Good.” Only 1% of IBM and Lenovo customers and 3% of HPE and Huawei usersgave 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, for example, experienced technical problems with their hard drives in the first year of usage, followed by IBM Power Systems and Lenovo System x with one percent (1%) each during the first 12 months of deployment.
External Issues Negatively Affect Reliability: End User Carelessness (74%),Human Error (59%) and Security (51%) are the top external causes of downtime and unanticipated reasons for taking servers offline.

IBM and Lenovo executives offered their perspective on the ITIC reliability poll results.

“For our clients, the security and reliability of IBM Z and IBM Power Systems are essential building blocks for high-performance workloads from core banking transactions, to AI and Blockchain,” said Jamie Thomas, General Manager, Strategy and Development, IBM Systems. “As our clients enter Chapter 2 of digital transformation, IBM Systems are best positioned to support the AI and Hybrid Cloud agenda.”

“Uptime and reliability are critical to running efficient data centers. Unplanned downtime often has significant impact to an organization’s bottom line, costing up to $400K per hour,” said Kirk Skaugen, President, Lenovo and Executive Vice President, Lenovo Data Center Group. “For six consecutive years, Lenovo’s x86 servers including the ThinkSystem server portfoliohave received the highest reliability marks – comparable to larger-scale mainframe class competitive systems. The Lenovo ThinkSystem portfolio, paired with ourservices expertise, letsour customers achieve mission critical reliability and security and price/performance from their high-volume x86 systems.”

IBM Power Systems, Lenovo System x and ThinkSystem, HPE Integrity and Huawei KunLun Top ITIC 2019 Server Reliability Poll 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 »