Is Five Nines Feasible for SMBs?

For many enterprises, network availability is the air they breathe. Even a moment of downtime could prove fatal. Theses large businesses often pay dearly for five nines availability -- a service provider's guarantee that the network will be up and running for 99.999 percent of the time. Is five nines availability a worthy goal for an SMB, or is the price just too high?

The concept of five nines availability has its roots in server deployment. That standard demands that the IT department or the service provider hired by an enterprise deliver access to applications and data 99.999 percent of the time.

Even with today's migration to cloud storage and SaaS (Software as a Service) product delivery, much can happen to extend downtime to more than the remaining 5.26 minutes of every year. Is that small window of downtime a pie in the sky for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), whether or not they rely on cloud computing? Is it possible for SMBs to gain enough system backup to avoid a damning outage?

Depending on the nature of an SMB's business operation, the five nines gold standard might well be a goal just too costly to reach. However, five nines uptime may be less of an issue than guaranteeing data protection. The bigger question is, which part of the balancing act does an SMB IT staff need more -- data protection or data availability -- to ensure business continuity?

"Business continuity is extremely important -- but that does not mean application availability. Availability means five nines of uptime. Continuity means that when all else fails, you can get your data in a reasonable time frame. That's where judgment comes in to define a reasonable time period and then chart a solution to achieve it," Greg Donovan, CEO of Alpheon, told TechNewsWorld.

Alpheon is a managed services provider (MSP) that designs, deploys, maintains and monitors systems for SMBs and larger companies with a business-critical dependence on technology. The company is a strong proponent of data protection, which is not the same as paying for five nines reliability, according to Donovan.

Five nines uptime is not something with which SMBs should struggle, he argued. While that goal is technically attainable for SMBs, it is almost impossible to find an SMB willing to spend the time and money required to guarantee it.

What matters most to SMBs is access to their data. Even though an outage is painful, it is not usually fatal. What is more harmful is a lack of an excellent backup system, he noted.

"A big balance has to go into place. For some people it is literally making sure that the backup and maintenance system is infallible," Donovan said. "It depends on what the access needs are, the time frame, and the scope of the business -- but one size doesn't fit all."

A fairly simple cost analysis can help an SMB determine its ideal solution. The analysis includes factors such as how the data is clustered, how many data centers are involved, and what types of data need recovery. At issue is how much an SMB is willing to spend to get closer to five nines uptime.

"I would argue that you don't always need five nines of reliability. It's a cost-benefit consideration. It is important only if access to customers is always required. There is a point where cost doesn't benefit," Justin Moore, CEO of data protection and online backup firm Axcient, told TechNewsWorld.

Most important for many SMBs is a recovery strategy -- how long it takes to get back up and running. It does not always make sense for an SMB to chase the five nines uptime standard, defined as less than six minutes of downtime per year, he explained.

The majority of small businesses do not need that kind of availability. What they do need is a high availability of applications and reasonable continuity so they can literally run their businesses without it, he said.

That prescription for crash survival and recovery may not fall within the comfort zones of high-value warehouse operations and retail stores and offices tethered to branch locations. Some small businesses can trade the five-nines availability dance for hardware appliances and always-connected data service products that provide customers with resiliency and redundancy. Those SMBs needing the five-nines mantle can pay the higher costs of other solutions.

"It comes down to what happens when the outage occurs. I don't know too many large enterprises that require 99.9 percent reliability," Doug Medina, senior director for SMB and enterprise marketing for Hughes Network Systems, told TechNewsWorld.

One option Hughes offers is an overlayed DSL backup with its satellite connection. However, that solution usually does not fit SMB clients in smaller spaces because of its cost, according to Medina.

However, "it makes a lot of sense for retail store chains," he said.

SMBs, like larger enterprises that do need five nines reliability, also need an architecture to provide it. 3Tera's AppLogic appliance solution offers individual user portals and multiple servers from around the globe to guarantee access to data and applications.

"The system is capable of self-healing. If the human being gets involved, by definition, you've missed five nines. It is not possible to achieve five nines by trying to make sure nothing goes down. It is possible by insuring that when the system does go down, things still work as expected. That's where redundancy comes in," Bert Armijmo, senior vice president for sales marketing and product management for 3Tera, told TechNewsWorld.

With a plan and technology in place, achieving five nines availability is indeed possible for SMBs, according to Armijmo. Cloud computing makes world-class IT available to everybody on an SMB budget, he said.

3Tera's approach measures system availability through a full metering system. A front-end component constantly tries to access the customer's system. When it cannot, it gets logged as down time. Then a replicated replacement is put online.

Axcient's three services are designed to protect and restore data. RapidRestore Data Backup Services offers network-speed restoration so subscribers can reach their recovery time objectives (RTO). SmartArchive Data Retention Services provide flexible scheduling for long-term online data retention and the capability for point-in-time restoration to reach recovery point objectives (RPO). SmartDR Disaster Recovery Services makes possible a rapid return to business in the event of a site failure.

Alpheon's managed care services provide around-the-clock system monitoring and remote tech support. The company's managed IT provides a subscription service with performance-based service level agreements.

Hughes Network Systems offers specialized satellite broadband backup plans for SMBs that provide automatic failover in the event of a landline outage. This type of system could be a solution for those SMBs whose livelihoods depend on a 24/7 reliable network connection. The company has two plan options, depending on the type of primary landline service, Internet access or private network the customer uses.