Network outages surge, costing firms up to $5 million yearly

New research has found that network outages are increasing in frequency and cost, impacting data centre operations and leading to significant financial losses for businesses worldwide.

The study, conducted by Opengear, surveyed over 1,000 IT professionals – including CIOs, CSOs, and network engineers – from the United Kingdom, United States, France, Germany, and Australia. It revealed that 84% of organisations have faced a rise in network outages over the last two years, with more than a quarter observing a surge of between 25% and 50% in such incidents.

Financial repercussions from these disruptions were highlighted by the survey. Over one-third of organisations surveyed reported losses ranging from $1 million to $5 million due to outages in the past year alone. The implications extend beyond immediate revenue losses, as outages are also affecting business continuity and the availability of critical systems.

Outage causes

According to network engineers consulted in the research, device configuration changes and server hardware failures were cited as the leading causes of outages. Device configuration changes accounted for 27% of reports, while 26% attributed outages to server hardware failures.

More broadly, the results show that complexity in network infrastructure, an ageing hardware base, human error, and cyberattacks are all contributing to the increased number and severity of disruptions.

Patrick Quirk, President and General Manager, Opengear, said, "Outages are no longer isolated events. They are happening more often, and the cost is hitting businesses hard. Complexity, aging infrastructure, human error, and cyberattacks are all part of the problem. Governments are starting to take notice too, putting policies in place to protect critical digital infrastructure. As organisations lean more heavily on data centres to power digital transformation, the stakes are higher than ever. An outage is not just downtime. It is lost revenue, lost productivity, and lost trust."

Mitigation and investment

To address these challenges, many organisations are looking to technology investments as a solution. The survey found that 32% of businesses are prioritising investment in artificial intelligence and machine learning to manage and support data centre operations. Similarly, 30% said they intend to increase spending on Out-of-Band (OOB) management solutions within the next five years.

Quirk said, "Forward-looking businesses are not standing still. They are rethinking their strategies to build resilience into every layer of their operations. One clear shift is toward decentralisation, pushing workloads closer to where data is generated and consumed. That move reduces risk from a single point of failure, but it also demands new approaches to management and security."

Shift to edge computing

The report suggests that decentralisation is shaping future strategies, with 28% of organisations identifying the shift to edge computing and distributed networks as a significant trend impacting data centre network management over the next five years. This decentralised approach offers operational efficiencies, but also introduces greater complexity, demanding more advanced and resilient management tools.

Quirk continued, "Edge computing brings clear advantages in speed, security, and efficiency. But it does not make the job easier. Distributed environments create more moving parts, and that means more opportunity for failure if they are not managed properly. The answer is a resilient foundation, and secure remote management that keeps infrastructure reachable and under control, no matter where it is deployed."

The findings underscore the growing reliance on data centres for digital transformation initiatives and highlight the need for organisations to address the operational, management, and security demands of increasingly complex IT infrastructure environments.