As the backbone of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, cloud computing and the internet of things (IoT), datacentres are at the centre of modern business infrastructure, but as businesses become more dispersed, the infrastructure surrounding datacentres has become more critical and complex, with network outages no longer isolated events and their cost to businesses never higher, a study from Opengear has found.
The study examined the current state of datacentre management. It took the opinion of 513 CIOs and chief security officers (CSOs), along with 508 network engineers, across the UK, the US, France, Germany and Australia.
In its research report, Opengear noted that as businesses embrace advanced technologies such as AI and edge computing to optimise their datacentres, they must also navigate a set of complex challenges. It stated that integrating these innovations with legacy infrastructure, maintaining regulatory compliance, and managing the cost and scale of implementation remain significant barriers to achieving operational efficiency and resilience.
Fundamentally, the research found that as business transformation accelerates, so does complexity, and that the job of managing modern datacentres has never demanded more resilience, visibility and control. But just as datacentres are quietly powering the systems that keep things connected and supporting the technologies shaping the current digital economy, it seems organisations are facing a growing array of challenges.
These challenges range from security threats to managing distributed and hybrid networks, all while working to maintain network resilience. The study warned that failure to address these issues could result in outages, which are happening more often, and the cost of them is hitting businesses hard through reputational damage, operational disruptions and lost revenue.
The survey found that nearly a third (32%) of CIOs and CSOs in the UK reported that network outages had cost their organisations between £1m and £5m over the past year, illustrating the financial toll that such incidents can take. Similar trends were seen across Europe and the US, with 35% of respondents reporting that outages cost their organisations between $1m and $5m annually.
As many as 84% of CIOs and CSOs reported a rise in outages over the past two years. Over half (53%) of CIOs and CSOs overall said the number of outages experienced by their organisation has increased by 10-24% over the past two years, and a further 26% said they have seen a 25-50% increase. Opengear regarded this growing trend as a major concern for businesses, especially as only 6% of respondents reported a decrease in the frequency of outages.
From the perspective of network engineers, the survey found that outages are often the result of technical failures within the infrastructure. More than a quarter (27%) of the network engineers surveyed cited device configuration changes among the top causes of outages in the past year, and 26% referenced server hardware failure. Just over three-quarters (79%) of CIOs and CSOs said network outages have increased by at least 10% over the past two years, in many cases rising to 50%. Just 6% have seen a decrease.
Looking forward, 28% of CIOs and CSOs expected the shift towards edge computing and distributed networks to have the biggest impact on network management in datacentres over the next five years.
To mitigate these risks, nearly a third of organisations (32%) ranked AI and machine learning technologies among the technologies they have primarily invested in to support datacentre operations. At the same time, 30% expect to increase spending on out-of-band (OOB) management solutions over the next five years to meet this same goal.
Commenting on the study and the trends revealed, Opengear president and general manager Patrick Quirk said: “Outages are no longer isolated events. They are happening more often, and the cost is hitting businesses hard. Complexity, ageing infrastructure, human error and cyber attacks are all part of the problem.
“As organisations lean more heavily on datacentres 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. 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.”
