Presented by Intelligent Education Partner
This just highlights how the problem is worsening , rather than improving .
There is not one quick resolution to preventing the problem when humans are involved . To some degree , problems will still occur but organisations need to be taking a hard look at the steps that can be taken to ensure teams are the most competent and skilled as can be , so as not to become complacent . Organisations can ’ t just accept that outages which are preventable are acceptable , especially when the survey also reveals that in 2020 , a greater percentage of outages cost more than US $ 1 million ( now nearly one in six rather than one in 10 , as in 2019 ), and a greater percentage cost between US $ 100,000 and US $ 1 million . Surely , if organisations get better at spotting the knowledge , competency and skills gaps in their teams and invest to fill these gaps while ensuring the processes and procedures are kept up to date , the outcome could be significantly different . With industry-supported education programmes awarding official certification and qualifications out there , alongside advances in individual and team analytical tools , backed by science and psychological methodology that identifies exactly where knowledge , competency
NOW REALLY IS THE TIME FOR THE INDUSTRY TO WAKE UP AND START PAYING ATTENTION BY LOOKING AT WAYS TO REDUCE THIS HIGHLY PREVENTABLE DOWNTIME . and even confidence levels are lacking , there are so many opportunities for organisations to take important steps to work towards human risk mitigation .
Ultimately , it is industry best practice to regularly test and monitor the life cycle of mission-critical equipment . As an industry , we service our technical equipment to check it is still functioning as expected and plan its future lifespan and renew or restore to prevent against outages . The same thinking needs to be applied and in place for the teams working in data centres .
The individuals responsible for the outages are not individuals looking to sabotage , they are usually experienced members of the technical team that for one reason or another are not following processes or have knowledge , competence or confidence gaps . It ’ s a fact that if people have been doing the same job for an extended period , their confidence can take over and this can cause individuals to overlook details and specific processes which in turn can cause catastrophic failures – they could be confidently doing things wrong .
One of the big challenges organisations face is that continual professional development budgets are usually limited or cut to boost other areas of the organisation . There is also a common misconception about education / training allocation , as these activities are often used to provide a reward to those people who are most loyal or high-performing , rather than those who actually need it the most . This misconception results in the employees gaining very little from the development activities and therefore provides little or no benefit or ROI to the organisation itself . It ’ s crazy when you think of the massive risk data centre operators are taking by not investing in their people . It could cost them thousands per minute during an outage and the statistics continue to show that a large portion of these outages caused by human error are avoidable .
The Uptime Institute survey states that with more investment in management , process and training , the outage frequency would almost certainly fall significantly . Hopefully this will raise alarm bells to the rest of the industry to turn their attention to these areas . The pandemic has highlighted the critical importance of the digital infrastructure industry and demand is only going to increase . Alongside an increasing skills shortage and an ageing workforce , this is a stark warning that if organisations don ’ t properly develop , train and invest in teams throughout the entire workforce , outages are likely be become bigger and more expensive ( as the current figures suggest ).
With an ageing workforce , many experienced industry professionals will soon be looking to retire . With decades of industry and on-the-job experience , we must question whether those team members that will be taking their place are sufficiently trained , experienced and ready to handle any future issues that might arise . Organisations need to address the problem head-on instead of waiting for things to start going wrong . ◊
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