INFORMATION TECHNOLOGYINTELLIGENCE CONSULTING

ITIC 2023 Global Server Hardware,
Server OS Reliability ReportAugust/September 2023

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary ...............................................................................................3
Introduction ..........................................................................................................6
High Reliability and Operational Expenditure Costs ..................................................7
Survey Highlights...................................................................................................8
The Nines of Reliability and the Cost of Downtime ...................................................9
Data Analysis ...................................................................................................... 12
Overview: Top Survey Findings ............................................................................ 13
Downtime Comparison Costs by Server Platform .................................................... 16
Hourly Downtime Costs: 48% Estimate Losses Exceed $1M.................................... 23
Security Hacks, Data Breaches are Top Cause of Downtime ................................... 26
Security, Resiliency Reduce Downtime Costs ......................................................... 27
Enterprises that Prioritize Security, Best Practices Bolster Reliability..................... 28
Business and Technology Trends Impacting Reliability ........................................... 29
Conclusions ......................................................................................................... 31
Recommendations ............................................................................................... 33
Survey Methodology ............................................................................................ 35
Survey Demographics .......................................................................................... 36
Appendices.......................................................................................................... 36©Copyright 2023 Information Technology Intelligence Consulting Corp. (ITIC) All rights reserved.
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Executive Summary
The IBM Z and IBM Power continue to dominate, delivering the best server
reliability, uptime and security for the 15th straight year.
Lenovo’s ThinkSystem servers provide the best reliability among all x86 servers forthe ninth consecutive year and best server security for the last five years.
Cisco Systems, Huawei KunLun, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) Superdome
mission critical servers also register high reliability and security rankings
challenging the leaders. Cisco, in particular, continues to up its game with robust
network edge reliability and security.
IBM Z and IBM Power deliver over 40x more uptime than least efficient competing
platforms and up to 60x lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO depending on age,usage, and configuration. The Lenovo ThinkSystem, Cisco UCS, Huawei KunLun
and HPE Superdome delivered the best TCO among x86 platforms ranging from 17x
to 40x more economical than less reliable rivals.
An 84% majority of corporate respondents cite security as the top cause of
unplanned downtime and 67% say human error causes unplanned outages.
For the fifteenth year in a row, IBM Z and Power Systems servers dominated the reliability andsecurity landscape, delivering the highest levels of uptime and security among 18 server
hardware and operating system platforms.
The IBM Z mainframe servers (z13, z14 and z15) achieved an average score of “eight nines” of
uptime – or 315 milliseconds of per server annual downtime (See Exhibit 1). However, the latest
z16 server, (introduced in April 2022), delivers nine nines—99.9999999%—of near perfect
uptime and reliability. This is 31.56 milliseconds of per server annual downtime, according to
the results of the ITIC 2023 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey. From amonetary standpoint, IBM z16 businesses spend literally next to nothing on per server, perannum operational expenditures performing IT remediation due to unplanned server downtime.
Those are the results of the ITIC 2023 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability
independent Web-based survey. It polled 1,900 C-level executives, IT, and security
administrators in corporations across 37 vertical market segments worldwide. It compares thereliability, performance, and security of 18 leading mainstream on-premises and cloud-based
servers and operating systems from March through mid-July 2023. The corporate enterpriseparticipants were selected based on the length of usage of the various server hardware and server
OS distributions. For customers’ enterprise reliability responses to be counted, ITIC specified
that all server hardware distributions and specific releases were deployed in production©Copyright 2023 Information Technology Intelligence Consulting Corp. (ITIC) All rights reserved.
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Page 3

environments for at least one year. The survey also examines the monetary and business costs
associated with outages. To maintain objectivity, ITIC accepted no vendor sponsorship.
ITIC’s 2023 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability survey also found that overall, 91%,
of IBM Power8 and Power9 customers averaged six nines (99.9999%) – the equivalent of 31.5
seconds of unplanned annual per server downtime and seven nines (99.99999%) which equals
3.15 seconds of unplanned per server yearly downtime. Separately, an 88% majority of thenewest IBM Power10 server (shipping since September 2021) enterprises achieved eight nines—
99.999999%—of uptime. This is 315 milliseconds of unplanned, per server, per annum outage
time due to underlying system flaws or component failures. So, Power10 corporate enterprises
might spend $0.7 cents per server/per year performing remediation due to unplanned server
outages.
The IBM z16 and Power10 server-specific uptime statistics were obtained by breaking out theresults of more than 200 respondent organizations that deployed the z16 since it began shippingin April/May 2022. A 96% majority of z16 enterprises say their businesses achieved nine
nines—99.9999999%—of reliability or 31.56 milliseconds of unplanned annual per server
downtime (See Table 1).
The Lenovo ThinkSystem servers followed closely; 78% of customers said they posted six nines
of uptime which is the highest reliability score among all x86 hardware distributions for the ninth
consecutive year. Overall, a 94% majority of Lenovo ThinkSystem server enterprises attained
five, six and seven nines of reliability. Cisco UCS, Huawei KunLun and Fusion servers, the HPESuperdome hardware, rounded out the top five most reliable server platforms. They averaged arobust five nines of reliability equal to 5.26 minutes of unplanned annual per server downtime.

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Exhibit 1. Unplanned Annual per Server Downtime in Minutes by Vendor Platform
Unplanned Annual Downtime Per Server,Per Minute/Per Second
59 minutes
White box servers w/LinuxHPE ProLiant w/Linux
Oracle OpenSolaris
Oracle x86 w/Linux
Dell Power Edge w/Linux
InspurFujitsu Primergy
Huawei KunLun w/LinuxHPE Integrity Superdome w/Linux
Cisco UCS w/Linux
Lenovo ThinkSystem w/LinuxIBM Power 10 w/ IBM i, Linux, AIX
IBM z16 w/Linux or z/OS

37 minutes
35 minutes
32 minutes
24 minutes
10 minutes
5.9 minutes
1.39 minutes
1.38 minutes
1.27 minutes
31.5 seconds
315 milliseconds
31.56 milliseconds

Source: ITIC 2023 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey
Time is money.
A few minutes of downtime can halt business operations and immediately impact revenues. Thisis particularly true if an outage occurs during peak usage times or interrupts a crucial business
transaction (s). The potential consequences of an unplanned outage will have a negative, domino
effect on customers, business partners and suppliers.
Reliability or lack thereof, raises the risk of litigation and non-compliance with industry andgovernment regulations. This leaves the business open to civil and criminal fines and penalties.
Downtime associated with unreliable systems can also potentially damage a company’s
reputation and result in lost business.
Corporate enterprises owe it to themselves and their businesses to deploy the most reliable,robust, and secure servers and server OS software.
The IBM Z, IBM Power, Lenovo ThinkSystem, Cisco UCS, HPE Superdome and Huawei
KunLun servers (in that order) are the most consistently reliable, secure and robust servers.

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These six platforms offer the lowest Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and fastest Return on
Investment (ROI) among 18 different server hardware and server OS distributions.
Highly reliable servers, operating systems, and applications – that register a minimum of fourand preferably five nines – 99.99% and 99.999% - are required to support uninterrupted,
continuous data transactions and conduct business. Midsize and large enterprises in the top
verticals: banking/finance, education, government, healthcare, manufacturing, retail,transportation, and utilities, increasingly require six, seven and eight nines of reliability.
Organizations that fail to protect the uptime/availability of the core network infrastructure andvital applications will almost certainly suffer the monetary and business consequences.

Introduction
ITIC’s 2023 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey examines the internal andexternal issues that affect the reliability and security of server hardware, server OS and mission
critical applications. It also details the myriad ways in which the inherent reliability or instabilityof the server hardware impacts enterprises’ finances and operations at on premises datacenters,
the network edge, hybrid cloud computing, remote and hybrid work environments and IoT
ecosystems.
Server hardware, server operating systems and the business-critical applications running onthem are the foundation upon which the lifeblood of business operations rely.
With each passing year, organizations grow most cost conscious and risk averse. They dependon highly reliable, robust, and secure servers, server OS and application software to conduct
uninterrupted their daily business operations across their entire interconnected network
ecosystem(s). This includes on-premises datacenters, hybrid cloud environments, the networkedge and remote hybrid work environments.
The inherent reliability of servers, server OSes and component parts continue to demonstratesteady year over year (YoY) performance, reliability, and security gains.
These reliability gains are achieved via advances in the underlying semiconductor technology(e.g., processors, memory, hard drives, storage etc.); improvements in source code and network
connectivity. There are however many other factors that can precipitate unplanned outages. They
include but are not limited to:• Security• Human error• Complexity in configuring and provisioning new applications©Copyright 2023 Information Technology Intelligence Consulting Corp. (ITIC) All rights reserved.
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•••••

Incompatibilities among hardware and applications
Old or inadequate server hardware
Challenges arising from managing remote and hybrid work environments
Understaffed or inadequately trained IT, security, and software administrators
Catastrophic man-made or natural disasters (e.g., severe weather events)

Organizations require the most reliable, robust, secure and feature rich server technology tofortify their infrastructure and mitigate risk.

High Reliability and Operational Expenditure Costs
The most reliable servers that demonstrate five, six, seven, eight and even nine nines ofreliability will deliver the lowest TCO and greatest economies of scale. However, this does notmean there are no costs associated with owning, operating, managing, and securing the coreserver and server OS infrastructure.
Every organization has operating expenses (OpEx). This is the cost organizations incur as aresult of doing business every day. OpEx includes line items like salaries, rent and leasing,equipment operation and maintenance, utilities, marketing, insurance, accounting, legal fees,
research and development (R&D) funds and inventory costs.
Companies will still pay operating costs regardless of how reliable their servers are. However,having a highly reliable server infrastructure ensures that a company can stay within its OpEx
budget. An unstable, unreliable server environment will increase OpEx costs and has thepotential to impact the company’s capital expenditure (CapEx) budget as well.
ITIC launched its inaugural Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability survey in 2008.
Every year since, ITIC updates and expands the survey questions to reflect technology advancesand current business trends. Technology and the way enterprises deploy technology and transact
business have undergone substantial changes in the last decade. Indeed, even the last three-tofive years have seen the rapid emergence of new technologies like: Artificial Intelligence (AI),analytics, cloud computing (particularly hybrid cloud), cognitive computing, Internet of Things(IoT) Quantum safe computing (from IBM) and the expansion of the network edge.
These technology advances center on scalability, performance, sustainability, and security andare increasingly optimized for burgeoning hybrid cloud and network edge environments. New
hardware technology has yielded positive gains on server hardware reliability.

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ITIC’s 2023 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey segmented the reliability of
the latest versions of mainstream mission critical servers to quantify these gains. Platforms
including the IBM z16 with its quantum-safe computing security capabilities and AI on-chipinferencing performance capabilities; the IBM Power E1080 with transparent in-memory
encryption for hybrid cloud security; the Lenovo ThinkSystem SR950, which engineered for“always-on” reliability with multiple levels of resiliency to protect data and the Dell PowerEdge
R740XD, to name a few. This enabled ITIC to calculate the tangible business and economic
improvements associated with the latest server versions.
ITIC’s latest 2023 Reliability poll found that 95% of organizations cut downtime by 7% to 23%
when their firms upgraded to the newest, more robust and feature-rich brand name servers from
Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, HPE, Huawei, IBM, Inspur, Lenovo, Oracle and Toshiba. Less downtime
also improved employee productivity and enabled firms to better meet their revenue goals.
But new technological advances are sometimes offset by external market dynamics.
The COVID-19 pandemic (2020 through 2022) caused cataclysmic upheavals in business andeconomic trends that persist to the present day. During the pandemic lockdown, businesses andacademic institutions transitioned to remote and hybrid workforce and education environments.
Every market sector experienced disruption in their respective supply chains. This resulted inlonger lead times to purchase or replace products, components, and services. This precipitatedprice increases and inflation.
The last three years have also seen an explosion of targeted security hacks and data breaches likeransomware and CEO fraud, which continue unabated in 2023. The number, severity andmonetary cost of security incidents continue to soar. The Ponemon Institute IBM 2023 Cost of a
Data Breach Report found that the global average cost of a data breach in 2023 was $4.45
million (USD); this is a 15% increase over the last three years. And in a worrying trend, thesurvey revealed that 82% of data breaches involved data stored in the cloud.
All these issues make the underlying reliability of the core network infrastructure imperative.

Survey Highlights
To reiterate, the most reliable server distributions: IBM, Lenovo, Cisco, HPE and Huawei
successfully achieved their individual personal best reliability and availability scores comparedto the results posted in ITIC’s prior reliability studies.
•

The IBM Z, IBM Power servers and the LinuxONE III and LinuxONE Emperor 4
solution ranked first or were tied for first in every category including reliability, security,
performance, leading edge features and support.

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Page 8•Lenovo ThinkSystem servers scored top reliability marks among all x86-based hardware
for the ninth straight year averaging “six and seven nines” uptime depending on age andconfiguration of servers. Cisco UCS, the HPE Superdome and Huawei KunLun (in thatorder) mission critical servers rounded out the top five most reliable servers.

•

Cisco UCS also came on strong as the company doubled down on its security initiatives,
particularly at the network edge to maximize server and application availability. An 83%
majority of Cisco UCS customers achieved a solid “five nines” (5.26 minutes of perserver annual downtime) to “six nines” (31.5 seconds of downtime) depending on age,configuration, and workload. Cisco UCS servers cut unplanned per server annual
downtime to an average of 1.27 minutes – just behind the IBM Z, IBM Power andLenovo ThinkSystem distributions. High end mission critical Huawei KunLun and
Fusion servers and HPE Superdome rounded out the top five most reliable platforms.

•

Dell PowerEdge servers also improved their reliability, registering 24 minutes of
unplanned per server annual outage time; this is a reduction of two (2) minutes comparedto the 26 minutes of downtime Dell servers registered in ITIC’s 2022 Global Server
Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey. A 71% majority of the 22% of survey
respondents who upgraded to Dell high end PowerEdge servers (e.g., the PowerEdge
R6525 Server and the PowerEdge MX750c Server) in the last 12 to 18 months scoredfive nines – 99.999% - uptime equaling 5.26 minutes of per server annual downtime.

•

Some 84% of businesses cited security and data breaches as the number one cause of
unplanned downtime. This was followed by 67% of respondents who said Human error
was responsible for unanticipated outages and 51% who blamed complexity inconfiguring/provisioning new applications.

•

The IBM Z, IBM Power, IBM LinuxONE III and LinuxONE Emperor 4, Lenovo
ThinkSystem and Cisco UCS (in that order) also delivered the most consistent andhighest levels of security with the lowest percentage of downtime due to on-premises andcloud security hacks and data breaches.

•

Finally, Cisco, Dell, IBM, and Lenovo were in a virtual four-way tie for the highest
customer satisfaction and service and support. Nine-in-10 ITIC survey respondents gavethem “excellent” or “very good” ratings for quality, speed, and responsiveness.

The Nines of Reliability and the Cost of Downtime
As always, ITIC’s Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Report utilizes information
gathered from ITIC’s prior surveys (2008 through 2022) to compare the reliability of the various
server hardware and server OS platforms. The study also tracks reliability, security, cloud and©Copyright 2023 Information Technology Intelligence Consulting Corp. (ITIC) All rights reserved.
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Page 9other pertinent technology and business trends, like AI, analytics, IoT and virtualization. The
findings provide crucial metrics to assist organizations in making informed purchasing decisions
on which hardware and software offerings best suits their organizations’ specific business andbudgetary needs.
In 2023 a 93% majority of midsized and large enterprises (with over 500 employees) now
require a minimum of “four nines” (99.99%) reliability. However, 49% of organizations now
strive for “five nines” (99.999%) uptime or higher – up from 25% in ITIC’s 2018 survey.
As Table 1 illustrates, four nines of reliability equals 52.56 minutes of unplanned annual per
server downtime or 4.38 minutes of per server monthly downtime. By comparison, five nines of
uptime is the equivalent of just 5.26 minutes of unplanned, annual per server downtime. By
contrast, six nines of uptime equals 31.5 seconds of unplanned per server yearly downtime!

The Nines of Reliability and the Cost of Downtime
Table 1: Reliability/Uptime by the Numbers
Reliability %Downtime per year Downtime per month Downtime per week
90% (one nine)
36.5 days
72 hours
95%
18.25 days
36 hours
97%
10.96 days
21.6 hours
98%
7.30 days
14.4 hours
99% (two nines)
3.65 days
7.20 hours
99.5%
1.83 days
3.60 hours
99.8%
17.52 hours
86.23 minutes
99.9% (three nines)
8.76 hours
43.8 minutes
99.95%
4.38 hours
21.56 minutes
99.99% (four nines)
52.56 minutes
4.32 minutes
99.999% (five nines)
5.26 minutes
25.9 seconds
99.9999% (six nines)
31.5 seconds
2.59 seconds
99.99999% (seven nines)
3.15 seconds
0.259 seconds
99.999999% (eight nines)
315 milliseconds
26.25 milliseconds
99.9999999% (nine nines) 31.56 milliseconds
2.63 milliseconds
Source: ITIC 2023 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey

16.8 hours
8.4 hours
5.04 hours
3.36 hours
1.68 hours
50.4 minutes
20.16 minutes
10.1 minutes
5.04 minutes
1.01 minutes
6.05 seconds
0.605 seconds
0.0605 seconds
6.05 milliseconds
606.9 microseconds

There is an order of magnitude of difference between the “nines” of reliability. The difference
between each “nine” is usually 10; each order is either 10xs greater or 10xs smaller than the next
amount.

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For example, the order of magnitude of difference between a millisecond and a microsecond is
1/1,000,000th of a second. A millisecond is one-thousandth of a second while a microsecond isone-millionth of a second. The ratio between the two is 1,000 to 1. Therefore, a millisecond is
1,000 times longer than a microsecond. And while a nanosecond is not yet depicted on Table 1
above, it is defined as one-billionth of a second.
The emergence of advanced capabilities like the Telum processor and on-chip AI inferencing
make it possible for high end mission-critical servers like the IBM z16 to achieve eight nines andnine nines - 99.999999% and 99.9999999% or true fault tolerance.
These levels of uptime and availability would have been considered a pipe dream a decade ago in
2013. In fact, this level of reliability is still far beyond what the majority of servers can reliably
deliver at present.
The monetary cost of downtime is another crucial barometer that measures the impact reliability
and availability has on corporations’ bottom line.
ITIC’s 2023 Hourly Cost of Downtime survey indicates a single hour of server downtime canresult in potential losses of $300,000 or more for 93% percent of mid-sized (SMEs) and large
enterprises during a single hour. And among that 93% majority, over half or 46% – of firms saidhourly outage costs now exceed one million ($1M) to over five million ($5M).
Table 2 illustrates the Per Minute Cost of Downtime ranging from $100,000 to $10 million perhour for a single server in configurations of one, 10, 100 and 1,000 servers.

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Table 2. Monetary Cost of Hourly Server Downtime: Per Minute/Per Server(s)Hourly Cost Per Minute,
Per Minute,
Per Minute,
Per Minute,of Downtime Per Server
10 Servers
100 Servers
1,000 Servers$10,000$167$1,670$16,700$167,000$100,000$1,667$16,670$166,667$1,666,670$300,000$4,998$49,980$499,800$4,999,800$400,000$6,666$66,660$666,600$6,666,670$500,000$8,333$83,330$833,300$8,333,300$1,000,000$16,667$166,670$1,666,700$16,667,000$2,000,000$33,333$333,330$3,333,300$33,333,000$3,000,000$49,998$499,980$4,999,800$49,998,000$5,000,000$83,333$833,330$8,333,300$83,333,000$10,000,000$166,667$1,666,670$16,666,700$166,667,000

Source: ITIC 2023 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey

Data Analysis
The disparity in reliability amongst the most and least reliable server hardware platforms is
attributable to several factors, including:•••

Advanced technology and management capabilities.
Strong Security.
Aging server hardware. Unsurprisingly, when ITIC sliced the survey results, it foundrespondents reported the most pronounced reliability declines in aged servers over 3 ½
years old that they failed to upgrade or retrofit to accommodate mission-critical
workloads. Retaining servers for four, five and even six years is more common among
SMBs and smaller midsize enterprises that utilize less expensive, commodity platforms(e.g., White box unbranded servers, Dell, HPE ProLiant and Oracle x86). In this group,
ITIC’s survey found that approximately 53% to 64% of businesses retain the hardwarefor over three-and-a-half, to four, five and six years. Some firms upgrade “only as
needed” or when the server performance significantly degrades, causing the server tofreeze up or crash. Many customers likewise do not sufficiently right-size their servers tocarry the more memory and compute-intensive application workloads. Aged servers arealso much more prone to hard drive and component failures. This can prove especially©Copyright 2023 Information Technology Intelligence Consulting Corp. (ITIC) All rights reserved.
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•

•

•
•
•

problematic if customers encounter supply chain shortages or are unable to replace theparts at all.
Server configuration. Many organizations that purchase less expensive commodity
servers skimp on configuration (e.g., less memory, storage, slower CPU). Additionally,
the lower end servers frequently lack true enterprise capabilities that are designed for 24
x 7 operations. Commodity servers for instance may not be equipped with hot swap
capabilities like memory boards, disk drives, cooling units and power supplies. They may
also lack High Availability (HA) and clustering capabilities and may not support thelatest and most rigorous AES encryption and security standards.
Vendor Service and Support. After market technical service and support as exemplified
by IBM, Lenovo, Cisco, Dell and HPE – all of whom are consistent and responsive plays a pivotal role in customer satisfaction and retention. The more quickly a vendor
responds to its customer with answers and fixes, the more likelihood that downtime will
be minimized. Corporations that choose White box unbranded servers often find theirbusinesses left entirely to their own devices if and when problems arise.
Regular server hardware, server OS and application upgrade and refresh cycles.
Experienced IT and security administrators.
Corporations’ ability to adhere to the best computing practices and establish
governance.

In 2023 and beyond, $100,000 (USD) for one hour of downtime for a single mission-criticalenterprise server is extremely conservative for all but the smallest micro SMBs with one to 25
employees (See Exhibit 7). It equates to $1,670 per minute/per server. The hourly cost ofdowntime calculated at $300,000 equals $4,998 per server/per minute. The cost of significant,extended outage incident that a business estimates at $1 million (USD) per hour equates to$16,700 per server/per minute.

Overview: Top Survey Findings
To reiterate, ITIC’s 2023 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability also segmented thestandalone reliability for the IBM z16 server. The results showed that the z16 (introduced in
April 2022) delivers nine nines—99.9999999%— of uptime and reliability. This is a scant 31.56
milliseconds of per server annual downtime, according to the results of the ITIC 2023 Global
Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey.
From a monetary standpoint, IBM z16 businesses spend mere pennies on per server yearly
operational expenditures related to managing the platform and performing IT remediation
activities resulting from unplanned server and server OS outages.
ITIC’s 2023 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability survey also found that an 88%
majority of the newest IBM Power 10 servers (shipping since September 2021) customers©Copyright 2023 Information Technology Intelligence Consulting Corp. (ITIC) All rights reserved.
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Page 13

reported their organizations achieved eight nines—99.999999%—of uptime. This is 315
milliseconds of unplanned, per server, per annum outage time due to underlying system flaws orcomponent failures. So, Power10 corporate enterprises spend mere pennies per server/per year
performing remediation due to unplanned server outages.
Once again, the IBM z16 and Power 10 server-specific uptime statistics were obtained bybreaking out the results of more than 200 respondent organizations that deployed the z16 since itbegan shipping in April/May 2022. A 96% majority of these z16 enterprises say their businesses
achieved nine nines—99.9999999%—of server uptime. This is the equivalent of a nearimperceptible 31.56 milliseconds of per server annual downtime due to any inherent flaws in theserver hardware and its various components (See Table 1).
The above metrics illustrate that all versions of the IBM Z (z13, z14 z15 and z16); along with theLinuxONE III and LinuxONE Emperor 4 platforms record continuous, fault tolerant levels ofeight nines of reliability or, a near imperceptible 315 milliseconds of per server annual
downtime. They were followed by the IBM Power8 and Power9 distributions which averaged
close to seven nines or 3.15 seconds of annual per server downtime. This equates to $5.26 of perserver yearly downtime assuming an hourly downtime loss of $100,000.
The Lenovo ThinkSystem servers provide the highest uptime and availability among more than
one dozen x86 server distributions. The Lenovo ThinkSystem servers averaged six nines – 31.5
seconds of unplanned per server annual downtime, which is their best ever reliability results.
This amounts to an annual per server, per minute potential cost of $52.60 assuming hourly
downtime losses of $100,000. In the ITIC 2022 Reliability study, Lenovo ThinkSystem servers
averaged 1.10 minutes per server, per minute downtime with a potential associated cost of$1,837 per server, per minute.
The Huawei KunLun and Fusion mission critical servers clocked a per server annual average
downtime rate of 1.27 minutes of unplanned per server outages. That equates to per server/per
minute downtime charges of $2,120 for a single hour of downtime calculated at $100,000.
HPE’s high end Superdome servers also registered high reliability: with customers reporting
1.38 minutes of per server, per minute unplanned yearly downtime. Enterprises that estimate asingle hour of downtime calculated at $100,000 would incur potential monetary per server/per
minute losses of $2,321 down from the $2,404 based on 1.44 minutes of unanticipated perserver, per minute outage costs.
Unbranded White box servers were the least economical and least reliable as they continued toexperience the highest rate of unplanned per server monthly downtime – an average of 59
minutes of unavailability. This is the same statistic reported in ITIC’s 2022 Reliability survey.

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That has the potential to cost corporations $98,530 when hourly downtime losses are calculated
at $100,000.
The IBM Z; IBM LinuxONE; IBM Power; Lenovo ThinkSystem; Cisco Systems UCS; Huawei
KunLun and Fusion and HPE Superdome server distributions (in that order) achieved the highest
levels of reliability and scored high in every category; including:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

The least amount of per server/per minute unplanned downtime due to server flaws.
The least amount of unplanned per server downtime over four (4) hours.
The fewest number of successful security hacks resulting in server outages.
The least amount of unplanned per server downtime due to security and data breaches.
The least amount of security-related data losses, data theft.
The lowest amount of monetary losses.
The fastest Mean Time to Detection (MTTD) and Meantime to Recovery (MTTR).
The lowest Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and fastest Return on Investment (ROI).

As Exhibit 2 illustrates the most reliable servers: the IBM Z, IBM LinuxONE, IBM Power;
Lenovo ThinkSystem, Huawei KunLun, HPE Superdome and Cisco UCS (in that order) again
registered the lowest percentages of the most protracted four hours or greater per server.
Exhibit 2. IBM, Lenovo, Huawei and HPE Register Least Amount of Extended Outages

Unplanned Annual Downtime of > Four Hours by Platform
White box servers w/Linux36%

Oracle x86 w/Linux

13%

HPE ProLiant x86 w/Linux

11%

Dell PowerEdge x86 w/Linux
Inspur w/Linux

8%
7%

Toshiba w/Linux

6%

Fujitsu Primergy w/Linux

4%
2.8%

Huawei FusionServer w/Linux
Cisco UCS w/Linux2%HPE Superdome w/Linux

1.5%

Huawei KunLun w/Linux1%

Lenovo Think System w/Linux

0.8%

IBM Power w/Linux, w/AIX or… 0.4%
IBM LinuxONE0%

IBM Z w/Linux or z/OS

0%

Source: ITIC 2023 Global Server Hardware/Server OS Reliability Survey©Copyright 2023 Information Technology Intelligence Consulting Corp. (ITIC) All rights reserved.
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The IBM Power, Lenovo ThinkSystem, Huawei KunLun, HPE Integrity Superdome and Cisco
UCS were close behind. Only a niche, one percent minority of each platform experienced overfour hours annual downtime due to server or component flaws.

Downtime Comparison Costs by Server Platform
There is no way to overstate the symbiotic correlation of the server reliability and performancegains of the top vendors like IBM, Lenovo, Cisco, HPE and Huawei and their ability to double
down on security at time when security hacks and data breaches are soaring. Additionally, themost reliable server hardware distributions continually advance their respective solutions bysupporting the latest chip technology and incorporating new technologies like AI, analytics andcognitive computing into their hardware.
Every increase or decline in the amount of server reliability – however slight or prolonged – will
result in a commensurate positive or negative monetary cost. The reliability of the core server
hardware, server OS and business-critical application infrastructure directly impacts customers’
ongoing daily business transactions and operations; employee productivity; security andintellectual property (IP); the business reputation and ultimately, the revenue stream. There are
immediate monetary consequences associated with server outages of even short durations. The
reliability/uptime of each server platform yields substantial financial economies of scale in termsof lower or higher TCO. Additional per server outage time of even a minute or two, can cause
daily operational costs to skyrocket and raise the corporation’s risk of litigation and potential
penalties associated with non-compliance or failure to meet the terms and conditions of Service
Level Agreements (SLAs) with customers and business partners.
As Exhibits 3, 4, 5 and 6 below illustrate, there is a substantial gap in the annual unplanned
downtime cost comparisons among the top performers and the least stable hardware.
A single hour of downtime calculated at $100,000 = $1,670 per server/per minute.
A single hour of downtime estimated at $300,000 = $4,998 per server/per minute.
A single hour of downtime estimated at $1,000,000 = $16,670 per server/per minute.

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Exhibit 3. Unplanned Annual Downtime Per Server/Per Minute Assuming Cost of $100K
IBM z16 31.56 milliseconds$0

IBM LinuxONE 4 31.56 milliseconds$0

IBM Power 10 w/Linux, IBM i, IBM AIX 3.15… $5.26
Lenovo ThinkSystem w/Linux 31.5 seconds$52.60

Cisco UCS w/Linux 1.27 minutes$2,120HPE Superdome w/Linux 1.38 minutes$2,304Huawei KunLun w/Linux 1.39 minutes$2,321

Fujitsu Primergy w/Linux 5.9 minutes
Inspur w/Linux 10 minutes$9,853$16,700$40,080

Dell PowerEdge w/Linux 24 minutes$53,440

Oracle x86 w/Linux 32 minutes$58,450

HPE ProLiant w/Linux 35 minutes$98,530

Unbranded White box w/Linux 59 minutes

Source: ITIC 2023 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey
Exhibit 4 depicts the downtime YoY cost comparison statistics between ITIC’s 2022 and 2023
Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability surveys.
All versions of the IBM Z, the IBM LinuxONE, IBM Power, Lenovo ThinkSystem, Cisco UCS
Huawei KunLun and Fusion and HPE Superdome bested their prior year reliability statistics
despite challenges posed by the ongoing spikes in security hacks, supply chain disruptions,interoperability challenges and increasingly complex deployments.

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Exhibit 4. Unplanned Downtime Per Server/Per Minute Assuming Hourly Cost of $100K
IBM Z
IBM LinuxONEIBM Power w/Linux, AIX
Lenovo ThinkSystem w/Linux
Huawei KunLun w/LinuxHPE Superdome w/Linux
Cisco UCS w/Linux
Fujitsu Primergy w/Linux
Inspur w/Linux

$0
$7
$0
$7
$5.26
$1,670$52.60$1,837$2,321$2,120$2,304$2,404$2,120$3,340$9,853$10,354$16,700$18,370

Dell PowerEdge w/Linux
Oracle x86 w/LinuxHPE ProLiant w/Linux

2023

2022

$40,080$43,420$53,440$58,540$58,450$61,790

Unbranded White box w/Linux$98,530$98,530

Source: ITIC 2023 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey

The pivotal role server reliability plays in cost effectiveness is clearly evident among the various
server distributions in Exhibit 4 above. IBM’s Power8 and Power9 servers averaged close toseven nines or 3.15 seconds of annual per server downtime; this potentially costs enterprisecustomers $5.26 in per server yearly unplanned outages. This is a significant cost saving
compared to the $1,670 in annual outage remediation costs due to one (1) minute of per server
downtime customers spent in 2022.
In the latest 2023 ITIC Reliability poll, Lenovo ThinkSystem Server respondents improved to an
average of six nines of uptime; this equates to 31.5 seconds of unplanned per server annual
downtime. Assuming an hourly cost of downtime of $100,000, a business would potentially
incur remediation costs of just $52.60 per server yearly. By contrast, in 2022 Lenovo’s
ThinkSystem servers registered 1.10 minutes of yearly downtime at a potential cost of $1,837
for one minute of per server downtime, assuming hourly downtime losses of $100,000.
Inspur, hardware recorded 10 minutes of per server/per annum downtime – the monetaryequivalent of $16,700. Inspur’s current yearly uptime improved by one minute compared to
ITIC’s 2022 Reliability survey results. This enables Inspur corporate users to realize potential
cost savings of $1,670 per server. Inspur reliability costs are roughly 5x less than unbranded©Copyright 2023 Information Technology Intelligence Consulting Corp. (ITIC) All rights reserved.
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Page 18

White box servers. In ITIC’s latest 2023 Reliability Study, unbranded White box again recorded
per server downtime of 59 minutes; calculated at an hourly downtime rate of $100,000 which
could cost corporations $98,530 per server.
And as Exhibit 4 also shows, Dell’s popular line of PowerEdge servers averaged 24 minutes of
unplanned downtime, shaving off a full two minutes off the 26 minutes of per server, per minute
yearly downtime versus ITIC’s 2022 Reliability survey results. In 2023, Dell PowerEdge
customers have the potential to spend $40,080 compared to the $43,420 they may have had tospend for 26 minutes of per server unplanned downtime a year ago. That’s a potential costsavings of $3,340 per server annually.
The economies of scale between the most reliable server distributions and the less stable servers
are immediately evident.
For instance, IBM Power8 and Power9 servers which registered 3.15 seconds or seven nines of
unplanned yearly per server downtime costing $5.26 can potentially save corporate customers
nearly $16,694 per server annually versus an Inspur machine that experienced an average of 10
minutes of per server unplanned annual downtime at a cost of $16,700 assuming hourly outage
loss of $100,000.
This is not to say that the more commodity servers are bad; they are not. Dell, Fujitsu, Inspur,
Oracle and Toshiba hardware customer respondents to ITIC’s 2023 Reliability all achieved anaverage of four nines – 99.99% and five nines – 99.999% per server reliability, which is thecurrent and acceptable industry standard.
The crux of the issue is that enterprises are extremely risk averse. Downtime is expensive,
disruptive to daily operations and it leaves corporate enterprises vulnerable to security hacks.
Costs quickly add up when businesses factor in the total number of affected servers across theentire network ecosystem – on premises datacenters, virtualized servers, cloud (hybrid, public
and private), the network edge and remote offices. Many corporations today have virtualized
server farms in their on-premises data centers; essentially all cloud computing environments are
virtualized. A corporation that experienced one minute of downtime involving a single server
running three or four mission critical applications would incur outage costs of $6,680 per
minute. Similarly, a company that experienced a single minute of downtime impacting 10
corporate servers, at an estimated hourly downtime rate of $100,000 would register $16,700 in
outage-related revenue and productivity losses. These statistics are exclusive of any litigation orcivil and/or criminal penalties or fines arising from the downtime. The figures also do notinclude the cost of any “good will” gestures, in terms of refunds or credits, a firm might make tocustomers, business partners or suppliers whose operations were affected by any outages.

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One quarter – 25% of survey respondents said hourly downtime costs their organizations from
$301,000 to $400,000. Overall, 93% of SME and large enterprises estimate that a single hour ofdowntime ranges from $300,000 to over $5 million (USD).
As Exhibit 5 illustrates, higher hourly downtime cost estimates of $300,000 for a single hour;
this essentially triples per server/per minute downtime costs. Once again, the IBM, Lenovo,
Huawei, HPE and Cisco hardware deliver the greatest economies of scale based on their highreliability and availability.
The IBM z14 and z15 as well as the IBM LinuxONE III deliver several orders of magnitude
greater cost savings. For instance, IBM Z and IBM LinuxONE customers reported eight nines or
99.999999% reliability which is just 315 milliseconds of unplanned per server/per minute annual
downtime. This equates to $15.74 per server/per minute outage cost calculated at an hourly
downtime cost of $300,000.

Exhibit 5. Unplanned Annual Downtime Per Server/Per Minute Assuming Hourly Cost of$300K
IBM z16 w/z/OS or Linux 31.56 milliseconds$15.74

IBM LinuxONE 4 31.56 milliseconds$15.74

IBM Power 8 and 9 w/Linux, w/AIX or IBM i… $157
Lenovo ThinkSystem w/Linux 31.5 seconds$1,574

Cisco UCS w/Linux 1.27 minutes$6,347HPE Superdome w/Linux 1.38 minutes$6,897Huawei KunLun w/Linux 1.39 minutes$6,947

Fujitsu Primergy w/Linux 5.9 minutes$29,488$49,980

Inspur w/Linux 10 minutes$119,952

Dell PowerEdge w/Linux 24 minutes$159,936

Oracle x86 w/Linux 32 minutes$174,930

HPE ProLiant w/Linux 35 minutes$294,882

Unbranded White box w/Linux 59 minutes

Source: ITIC 2023 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey

The IBM Power8 and Power9 per server, per minute reliability rate of approximately sevennines – 3.15 seconds of annual per server unplanned downtime potentially cost businesses $157
when assuming an hourly outage rate of $300,000.
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In contrast, Dell PowerEdge server survey respondents reported an average of 24 minutes of perserver annual unplanned downtime. This is between four and five nines of uptime – 99.99% and99.999%, respectively. This is the current industry minimum accepted average uptime rate. Yet
Dell enterprise shops could potentially incur per server losses of cost of $119,952 assuming anhourly outage cost of $300,000.
This means the IBM Power servers can deliver a nearly better 100% economies of scale costsavings of $119,795 a single server compared to the Dell PowerEdge.
The Lenovo ThinkSystem servers likewise deliver impressive cost savings. Lenovo
ThinkSystem servers recorded an average of six nines or 31.5 seconds of unplanned yearly
server downtime which equals $1,574 assuming a cost of $300,000 of hourly downtime. The
Lenovo ThinkSystem servers potentially deliver an annual cost savings of $118,378 per server,
per minute compared to the Dell PowerEdge servers.
The above statistics are fluid not static. Individual corporate enterprise reliability results andcosts will fluctuate depending on the amount of time in minutes and hours that each server
distribution experiences annually, monthly, and weekly.
There are many other issues that also factor into final costs such as: whether or not theunplanned outage occurred during peak usage time; whether or not data was lost, stolen ordamaged, compromised or destroyed; the amount of time and the number of affected employees
who experienced lost productivity; the costs associated with interrupted business transactions aswell as the number of IT administrators and the length of time it took to return the servers andapplications to full operations.
Corporations must also tally any costs associated with litigation: was the firm sued or was it
required to pay civil or criminal penalties due to regulatory non-compliance?
The uptime and availability of the least reliable hardware platforms can be improved
considerably when corporate enterprises adhere to best practices. This includes right-sizing andconfiguring servers to accommodate current and future compute intensive applications andworkloads. Organizations that elect to purchase inexpensive servers to cut capital expenditure
costs should also review their upgrade cycles and not push servers beyond their acceptable
limits. While a three-and-a-half or four-year refresh cycle may be adequate for a server that is
not running a business-critical application, it’s not advisable for a hardware platform runningmission critical applications containing sensitive data or IP that is directly tied to the company’s
revenue stream. Strong security and getting the appropriate training and certification for IT staff
and security professionals are also crucial to improving reliability. A reduction of even a few
minutes of unplanned downtime can save enterprises substantial sums and mitigate risk.
Large enterprises with over 1,000 employees comprised 54% of ITIC’s 2022 Global Server
Hardware, Server OS survey respondents. From a monetary perspective, large enterprises©Copyright 2023 Information Technology Intelligence Consulting Corp. (ITIC) All rights reserved.
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Page 21

typically suffer the largest amounts per server/per minute losses. ITIC’s latest survey data
revealed that 44% of those polled, estimated that the average price tag for one hour of
unexpected downtime exceeds $1 million (USD) and 18% said their firms’ losses surpass $5
million (See Exhibit 7).
This makes the inherent reliability and security features/functions of the server all the more
important. Server hardware, server operating systems and the business-critical applications they
run are the foundational elements of the entire connected network ecosystem.
The superior economics of the most reliable versus least reliable servers is even more apparent
for businesses that estimate or calculate their hourly downtime losses to be $300,000; $500,000
or $1,000,000 or higher as depicted in Exhibits 3, 4, 5 and 6.
Exhibit 6 depicts the cost of one minute of per server hourly downtime calculated at $1 million(USD) associated with each server hardware platform based on their annual per server, perminute unplanned downtime amounts. Once again, the IBM Z and IBM LinuxONE delivered thebest economies of scale: the lowest TCO and immediate ROI.
ITIC’s 2023 Global Reliability report, all versions of the IBM Z (z13, z14, z15 and z16) and the
IBM LinuxONE III and IBM LinuxONE 4 offerings recorded averaged eight nines of reliability
or 315 milliseconds of annual unplanned per server downtime. The per server, per minute annual
unplanned downtime cost is approximately $53 dollars.
All versions of IBM Power servers (Power8, Power9 and Power 10) averaged seven nines or3.15 seconds of unplanned downtime. Assuming hourly downtime losses of $1 million, thisequals $526 per server, per minute downtime.

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Exhibit 6. Unplanned Downtime Per Server/Per Minute Assuming Hourly Cost of $1Million
IBM Z 315 milliseconds$53

IBM LinuxONE 315 milliseconds$53

IBM Power w/Linux, i AIX 3.15 seconds$526

Lenovo ThinkSystem w/Linux 31.5 seconds$5,260

Cisco UCS w/Linux 1.27 minutes$21,200

HPE Superdome w/Linux 1.38 minutes$23,040

Huawei KunLun 1.39 minutes$23,210

Fujitsu Primergy w/Linux 5.9 minutes
Inspur w/Linux 10 minutes$98,530$167,000$434,200

Dell PowerEdge w/Linux 24 minutes$584,500

Oracle x86 w/Linux 32 minutes$617,900

HPE ProLiant w/Linux 35 minutes$985,300

Unbranded White box w/Linux 59 minutes

Source: ITIC 2023 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey

Hourly Downtime Costs: 48% Estimate Losses Exceed $1M
ITIC’s 2023 Global Server Hardware and Server OS Reliability Survey found that 93% of
respondents now estimate that one hour of downtime costs the firm $301,000 or more; this is anincrease of two (2) percentage points in less than two years (See Exhibit 5). Of that number,
46% of those polled indicated that hourly downtime costs now exceed $1 million. For the third
consecutive year, 99% of all sizes of small, mid, and large enterprises (SMEs) and large
corporations’ hourly downtime losses exceed $100,000 (See Exhibit 7).
There are many cost variables. For instance, an issue that takes down a server(s) running a nonbusiness essential application; or downtime that occurs in off-peak or non-usage hours, may haveminimal to no impact on business operations and negligible financial consequences.
On the other end of the spectrum, cloud-based server outages involving a virtualized server
running two, three or four instances of a business-critical application housed in a single physicalmachine have the potential to double, triple or quadruple business losses when daily business
operations are interrupted and employees and business partners, suppliers and other stakeholders
are denied access to critical data.

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The most expensive hourly downtime scenario presented in Table 2 depicts per server/per minuteoutage expense impacting 1,000 servers at an organization that values an hour of downtime at$10 million. In this example, a large enterprise could conceivably sustain crippling losses of$166,667,000 per server/per minute.
Again, it’s important to emphasize that the ITIC Hourly Downtime monetary figures represent
only the remediation costs associated fixing the actual technical issues and business problems
that caused the server or OS to fail and restoring the server and applications to full function.
These statistics do not include legal fees, criminal or civil penalties the company may incur or
any “goodwill gestures” that the firm may elect to pay customers (e.g., discounted, or freeequipment or services). Enterprises must calculate any additional monies, fees and penalties
separately and make a detailed accounting of each significant unplanned outage.
As Exhibit 7 illustrates, the Hourly Cost of Downtime continues to increase. Nearly half of all
midsize and large enterprise survey respondent organizations with 500 or more employees now
say that a single hour of downtime results in $1 million (USD) or more.
Thanks to inflation, in 2023 organizations of all sizes, spanning all vertical markets reported an
uptick in their firms’ hourly downtime costs compared to 2022. Some 29% of survey
respondents say hourly downtime expenses total $301,000 to $400,000; this is an increase offour (4) percentage points versus 25% in 2022. Additionally, 48% of firms now say a single
hour of downtime in 2023 costs their businesses one million ($1 Million). Some 23% of survey
respondents indicated their 2023 hourly downtime losses exceed five million ($5M) an increaseof three (3) percentage points from last year. Based on ITIC’s Hourly Cost of Downtime
research over the past decade as well as ongoing inflation impacting everything from consumer
goods to transportation, fuel and utility costs, corporations should be prepared for hourly
downtime costs associated with unplanned outages to increase. These costs are exclusive of any
litigation, civil or criminal penalties, fines, or voluntary goodwill gestures that firms may incur.

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Exhibit 7. Hourly Cost of Server Downtime Tops $1 Million for 48% of Enterprises
A 93% Majority of Enterprises Say Hourly Downtime Costs Top $300K
23%

>$5M
13%

$2M to $5M

12%$1M to $2M

16%$501,000 to $1 Million
11%$401,000 to $500,000

18%$301,000 to $400,000
3%$201,000 to $300,000
2%$101,000 to $200,000$51,000 to $100,000

1%$10,000 to $50,000

1%

Up to $10,000

0%Source: ITIC 2023 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey
Minimizing downtime means higher end user and IT and security administrative productivity; itensures continuous daily operations; mitigates risk and improves satisfaction among customers,
business partners and suppliers.
The escalating cost of computing/network outages is attributable to several factors, including:• Supply chain disruptions are increasingly commonplace since COVID-19. Although theglobal pandemic is over, other issues stemming from climate change to volatile andunstable geo-political conflicts persist and negatively impact the global supply chain.
• Inflationary pricing impacting the cost of goods, services, transportation, and delivery.
• An increase in the number of interconnected devices, systems and networks via the
Cloud and the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems.
• The surge in security hacks and data breaches. These include targeted security andransomware attacks by organized hackers; email phishing scams; CEO fraud and a wide
range of malware, viruses, and rogue code.
• Human error. The more people that “touch” systems and applications, the greater the
likelihood of introducing errors. Everyone from CEOs, knowledge workers, IT and
Security administrators down to part-time workers and company interns access corporate©Copyright 2023 Information Technology Intelligence Consulting Corp. (ITIC) All rights reserved.
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servers, applications, and information. Users regularly access sensitive data assets andintellectual property (IP) via a wide array of devices and networks, many of which lacksecurity. This creates more vulnerabilities and entry points into the network. All of which
can contribute to increased downtime and higher costs.
• Organizations’ increasing use of employee-owned and mobile devices creates
opportunities and risk. The proliferation of employee-owned personal devices: PCs,
laptops, tablets and smart phones to access corporate servers, applications and sensitive
data is a two-edged sword. On the plus side, the expanded access unfetters employees.
Access to information is literally at their fingertips regardless of time or location.
Organizations also save capital expenditure monies on the cost of purchasing desktops
and laptops. Use of employee-owned devices is not without risk. They create new entry
points and potential vulnerabilities into the network. Without the proper security
mechanisms and corporate and IT security oversight, companies are at greater risk ofbeing hacked if the employee-owned device is stolen or lacks sufficient security.
ITIC anticipates that all these trends – particularly security and data breaches; the ongoinghybrid work environment; the increase in cloud deployments as well as the data deluge and data
sprawl will continue with no foreseeable.
Although large enterprises with over one thousand employees may experience the largest actual
monetary loss totals, downtime can be equally devastating to SMBs. Smaller firms with one to
250 employees typically lack the financial resources of large corporations. Seemingly, shortoutages of five, 10 or 30 minutes during peak usage hours can deal SMBs a crippling monetary
blow. Prolonged outages of 60 minutes or more, or a series of multiple outages of shorter
durations could put SMBs at heightened risk of closure.

Security Hacks, Data Breaches are Top Cause of Downtime
Security hacks and data breaches continue to surge, rising by 58% over the last 20 months,
according to ITIC’s latest survey data. Those polled also said security issues constitute the mostserious threat that can undermine the reliability and stability of servers throughout the entire
corporate ecosystem – in datacenters, at the network edge and in public, private and hybrid
clouds. Human error, which is closely linked to security outages, was cited by 67% of survey
participants as a major cause of server downtime, followed by 54% of respondents who said
remote working and remote learning precipitated unplanned outages.
As Exhibit 8 illustrates, the IBM, Lenovo, Huawei, HPE and Cisco server platforms (in thatorder) delivered the highest levels of security and experienced the least amount of downtime
related to a security hack.

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Page 26

Exhibit 8. IBM, Lenovo Servers Most Secure, Toughest to Crack
IBM, Lenovo, Huawei, HPE Servers Suffer Lowest Downtime
Percentages due to successful Security Attacks

44%
29% 27%26%

21%

14% 11%

5%4% 2.8% 2%

0.1% 0.1%

Source: ITIC 2023 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Security Survey

Security, Resiliency Reduce Downtime Costs
Presently, four nines or 99.99% uptime remains the minimum requirement for nine-in-10
companies. However, that is changing. To reiterate, ITIC’s 2022 Global Server Hardware, Server
OS Reliability poll found that 40% of respondents now say their firms strive for five nines 99.999% - reliability or greater. To achieve that, robust security is imperative.
The most reliable servers all feature top-notch security, resiliency, and advanced system recovery
capabilities. Consequently, their enterprise customers are well equipped to cope and quickly
respond when an outage occurs.
Corporate enterprises also deserve a good deal of credit for IBM, Lenovo, Huawei, HPE andCisco servers’ high reliability and security scores. Typically, these enterprise customers are priceconscious but not driven by the need to purchase the least expensive brands, delay upgrades andskimp on IT and security training for their administrators. IBM, Lenovo, Huawei, HPE and Cisco
high end customers also retrofit and upgrade their server hardware and server operating systems
on regular two- and three-year cycles or as needed. An 81% majority of IBM Z users and 72% of©Copyright 2023 Information Technology Intelligence Consulting Corp. (ITIC) All rights reserved.
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Page 27

IBM Power customers regularly retrofit or upgrade their hardware every three years comparedwith just 28% of Dell PowerEdge customers.
Besides the obvious technical merits of the IBM Z, IBM LinuxONE and IBM Power mission
critical hardware, the server reliability is further fortified by the greater expertise of the IT
administrators in corporations that use IBM. ITIC’s reliability survey data shows that large
corporate enterprises with a strong contingent of mission critical IBM, Cisco, HPE and Lenovo
servers, the IT administrators typically have 10 or more years’ experience and are current oncertifications and training – particularly with respect to security. By contrast, firms (with somenotable exceptions) that use less expensive, commodity Dell, HPE ProLiant, Oracle andunbranded White box servers are more likely to hire IT managers who are entry level and have
one-to-five years of experience.
Finally, the IBM, Lenovo, Huawei and HPE server organizations are price conscious, but notprice driven in the same way that SMBs and midsized enterprises are. Another differentiator: ahigher percentage of enterprise customers deploying high end mission critical IBM, Lenovo,
HPE and Huawei servers also adhere to a regular three or three-and-one-half year upgrade cycle.
They will also upgrade and right-size their server hardware to adequately support advanced,
more compute intensive applications, as needed. This is crucial since applications like AI,
Analytics, Blockchain, IoT and Virtual Reality (VR) are resource intensive. More recently,
Cisco UCS shops (many of which are deployed at the network edge, often on the front line of
security attack) are also upgrading their platforms with increasing frequency and regularity tobolster security.
Commodity server users should not defer upgrades or retain servers well beyond therecommended three-year upgrade cycle. Over 60% of businesses that deploy commodity servers
and unbranded White box hardware retain the servers for four, five or even six years while
increasing the application workload. And this has been the case for the last four years. This isjust asking for trouble. The exceptions to this rule: very small businesses whose application
environment remains static.

Enterprises that Prioritize Security, Best Practices Bolster Reliability
The most reliable server vendors also benefited from the proactive behavioral habits andexpertise of their corporate customers. On average, 80% of IBM, Lenovo, Huawei, HPE andCisco shops, regularly upgrade and refresh their servers every three years, or as needed. This
enables the servers to accommodate mission-critical workloads and easily handle computeintensive analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality applications, without taking aperformance or reliability hit. Additionally, enterprises that deploy IBM Z, IBM LinuxONE,
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Page 28

UCS hardware are three to four times more likely to get the appropriate training and certification– especially security awareness training – for their IT departments and security professionals.

Business and Technology Trends Impacting Reliability
The data deluge, data sprawl as well as the rapid shift to the cloud are factors cited by 60% of
ITIC Reliability survey respondents as presenting challenges to overall server and network
reliability. This is bolstered by multiple security and threat reports.
The Netskope Cloud and Threat Report: Cloud Data Sprawl1 released in July 2022 found thatorganizations’ cloud application usage has increased 35% since the beginning of 2022. The
study, by Netskope, a security edge vendor based in Santa Clara, CA, found that an averagecompany of 500 to 2,000 users uploads, creates, shares or stores data in 138 different apps. And
they use an average of 1,558 distinct cloud apps each month. The report found that more than
one in five (22%) of users upload, create, share or store data in personal apps and personal
instances, with Gmail, WhatsApp, Google Drive, Facebook, WeTransfer, and LinkedIn ranking
as the most popular personal apps and instances. This creates more potential areas ofvulnerability and commensurately increases the organization’s managerial burden.
And the CloudStrike 2023 Global Threat Report2 by CloudStrike Holdings, Inc. an Austin, Texas
cyber security technology firm reported adversaries are accelerating cloud exploitation and thathackers have created a new “state of the art” for vulnerability exploitation to sidestep patches.
The ITIC 2023 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey responses also
highlighted several ongoing trends that have the potential to directly undermine system,
application and network reliability.
Security is unsurprisingly, foremost among them. To put it simply: security is big business, somuch so that it constitutes its own market segment.
•

Data Breaches Continue to Surge Post-Pandemic. Some 61% of enterprises said
targeted security issues including ransomware, Phishing, CEO fraud and assorted Emailscams – increased during the last 16 months. This up 23 percentage points since 2020,
further reinforcing the need for robust security in the foundational server infrastructure.
Servers from IBM, Lenovo, Huawei, HPE and Cisco (in that order) were the most secure
1

The Netskope Cloud and Threat Report: Cloud Data Sprawl, July 2022. URL:
https://www.netskope.com/netskope-threat-labs/cloud-threat-report
2

CrowdStrike 2023 Global Threat Report, URL:
https://go.crowdstrike.com/2023-global-threat-report.
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Page 29••as those vendors make ongoing substantial investments/improvements in embedded
security features.
Mixed Outlook for Semiconductors: Political instability, Supply Chain Issues andInflation negatively impact Server Reliability. Supply chain issues remain challenging
and paint a nebulous picture for corporate enterprises. The situation is not as critical as it
was during the COVID-19 pandemic. And certain sectors like Automotive are seeing
supply chain woes easing somewhat, extended lead times in general are expected topersist at least through the end of 2023, according to investment and financial analyst
firms. Deloitte’s 2023 Semiconductor Industry Outlook3 report says the war in Ukraine isdisrupting supply chains, access to important raw materials, and energy prices worldwide
and energy prices worldwide—and especially in Europe. Additionally, the Deloitte reportnotes that “…the US government’s steps in October 2022 to tighten the rules around theexport of advanced semiconductor technologies to China will likely shape the entire
industry (including the downstream customers) for 2023.” That is already happening asserver vendors - including IBM, Lenovo, Huawei and others.
IBM, Lenovo, Huawei, HPE and Cisco servers deliver best security. IBM, Lenovo,
Cisco, Huawei, HPE and servers (in that order) also attained the highest levels of security
for the third straight year recording the fewest number of successful hacks. Following on
the results from the 2022 survey, ITIC’s latest 2023 Global Server Hardware Security andReliability poll found that IBM, Lenovo, Huawei and HPE mission critical servers
experienced the lowest percentages of downtime due to successful security hacks anddata breaches. A miniscule 0.1% IBM Z, IBM LinuxONE III and LinuxONE Emperor 4
servers were hacked. And of that 0.1%, a 92% majority % of IBM survey respondents
were able to detect, isolate and thwart the hack in five-to-10 minutes. Among the otherserver distributions: 74% of Lenovo; 71% of Huawei and HPE survey participants
indicated the data breach was due to an unsecured attached employee-owned device (e.g.,a PC, laptop, notebook, tablet, or smart phone) that enabled hackers to access the servers.
Among mainstream hardware platforms, only four percent of IBM Power and Lenovo
ThinkSystem users reported their systems were successfully hacked. And only five
percent of Huawei KunLun and HPE Integrity Superdome servers suffered a security
breach. Once again, unbranded White box servers had the highest percentage – 39% of
successful security hacks and data breaches; consequently, 44% of White box servers
also experienced downtime due to the attack.

3

Deloitte 2023 Semiconductor Industry Outlook, March 2023. URL:
https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/technology-mediatelecommunications/us-tmt-semiconductor-industry-outlook.pdf©Copyright 2023 Information Technology Intelligence Consulting Corp. (ITIC) All rights reserved.
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Page 30•••IBM, Lenovo and Huawei KunLun Servers Lowest Percentage of Hardware
Failures: As in the prior ITIC 2022 Reliability Update Survey, the most recent 2023
survey statistics show that IBM, Lenovo and Huawei’s KunLun platforms continue toexperience the fewest hard drive quality or failure issues among all of the server
distributions within the first year of usage. Less than one percent – 0.1% – of IBM z13,
z14, z15 and z16 servers experienced technical problems with their hardware in the firstyear of usage, followed by the IBM Power with 0.5% and Lenovo ThinkSystem with
0.6% and Cisco UCS with 1.5% each during the first 12 months of deployment.
Increase in Server Workloads causes reliability declines in 78% of servers over four (4)years old that haven’t been retrofitted or upgraded to accommodate increased workloads.
Planned Downtime Increases: Seven-in-10 enterprises now spend from two-to-eight
hours monthly on planned downtime. The majority of planned downtime is attributable toapplying security patches, resolving incompatibilities among various hardware andapplications and testing and provisioning new applications.

Conclusions
ITIC’s 2023 Global Server Hardware and Server OS Reliability Survey findings indicate that forthe 15th consecutive year, the IBM Z remains the undisputed and unsurpassed reliability serverleader, along with the LinuxONE III and LinuxONE Emperor 4 solutions. The IBM Z and
LinuxONE maintained their best-in-class status in every category across the board: reliability,
security, scalability, performance, sustainability and manageability. The IBM Z and the IBM
LinuxONE III and LinuxONE Emperor 4 are in a class of their own. A 96% majority of survey
participants said the z13, z14 and z15 and LinuxONE III delivered eight nines -99.999999% - ofcontinuous fault tolerant reliability. IBM Z and LinuxONE III enterprises said they essentiallyexperienced no discernible downtime and the associated outage costs were likewise almost
undetectable to the corporate bottom line.
The IBM Power8 and Power9 servers also met and exceeded their best ever reliability metrics –with 95% of the Power platforms averaging six and seven nines of server uptime, while the IBM
Power10 achieved eight nines – 315 milliseconds of unplanned per server annual downtime.
The Lenovo ThinkSystem servers ranked as the most reliable x86-based hardware platform forthe ninth straight year averaging between six nines or 31.5 seconds of per server unplanned
annual downtime and seven nines or 3.15 seconds of unanticipated per server yearly downtime.
The Cisco UCS servers registered 1.27 minutes of unplanned per server downtime, followed
closely by the HPE Superdome and Huawei KunLun servers with 1.38 minutes and 1.39 minutes
respectively of per server, annual unplanned outages. They averaged between five and six ninesof reliability – according to eight-in-10 corporate survey respondents.
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Page 31The top performing and most reliable server distributions consistently achieve high reliability
year after year because they advance the core functionality of their hardware with inherent
reliability, management, and security to support the demands of high transactional workloads
and emerging technologies like AI, Analytics, cloud computing, IoT, security and sustainability.
In another notable achievement, IBM and Lenovo were either first or second in every reliability
and availability category or tied for first or second place in every uptime, security, ormanageability metric in the survey. And when the IBM Z, IBM LinuxONE III, IBM Power,
Lenovo ThinkSystem, Huawei KunLun and HPE Superdome servers did experience an outage
due to inherent problems with the server hardware or component parts – they were of shortduration. It typically took IT managers under 10 minutes and in most cases, three-to-five (5)minutes to restore to full operation.
Organizations are cost conscious and extremely risk averse. They depend on highly reliable,robust, and secure servers, server OS and application software to conduct uninterrupted their
daily business operations across their entire interconnected network ecosystem(s). This includes
on-premises datacenters, hybrid cloud environments, the network edge and remote hybrid work
environments.
It is the responsibility of the vendors to deliver reliable products and top-notch technical service
and support. Corporations also bear responsibility for keeping their IT departments well-staffedand providing the necessary training and certification to IT administrators. Achieving optimum
uptime means upgrading refreshing server hardware as necessary to support more data intensive
workloads and physical, virtual and cloud environments. Close attention must be paid to system
integration and interoperability, patch management and documentation. Business performance
will almost certainly suffer if server configurations are inadequate for current tasks andrequirements.
Unanticipated downtime is disruptive and expensive. It can also irreparably damage acompany’s reputation. In extreme cases, the business and monetary losses due to unstable
servers and applications can cause companies to go out of business. particularly severe or
prolonged outage from unreliable hardware, natural disasters or a targeted security incident likea ransomware attack or phishing scam.
Organizations whose server hardware, operating system, virtualization components fail todeliver the minimum acceptable standard of four, five and increasingly, six nines - of perserver/per annum downtime are playing Russian roulette with the health of their foundational
infrastructure and network ecosystem. Unreliable servers place organizations at heightened riskfor prolonged downtime. Likewise, insecure servers will undermine the reliability of the entire
corporate infrastructure leaving businesses vulnerable to security hacks and data breaches.
An unreliable server is an insecure server. An insecure server is an unreliable server.

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Page 32

Reliability is fluid, not static. No server, no component part – hard drive, memory, or CPU;
operating system; application, device or connectivity mechanism is immune from inherent
problems or failure. No hardware, software or device can deliver 100% security. Any system canbe hacked, and the reliability of any system can be compromised or undone by human error.
Server hardware, server operating system and the business-critical applications running on them
are the bedrock and foundation upon which the lifeblood of business operations rely.
Reliability or lack thereof raises the risk of litigation and non-compliance with industry andgovernment regulations which can leave the business open to civil and criminal penalties. The
downtime associated with unreliable systems can also potentially damage a company’s
reputation and result in lost business.
Corporate enterprises owe to themselves and their businesses to test and comparison shop anddeploy the most reliable, robust, and secure servers and server OS software.

Recommendations
An organization’s business and fiscal success depends on its ability to achieve four, five, six,seven and even the vaunted eight or nine nines of server hardware, server OS and server
application reliability/uptime and availability.
Server vendors and corporate enterprise customers must partner to attain these continuous
reliability goals. Server and server operating system, virtualization, security and cloud vendors
and their clients bear equal responsibility to achieve high reliability and security from the core
network infrastructure to the network edge, to the cloud and across all interconnected IoT
systems.
ITIC advises organizations to:•

Know what’s on your network. Conduct regular and thorough reviews of the current
infrastructure. Analyze and measure the uptime and reliability of mission critical servers,
server operating systems and applications.

•

Calculate the cost of unplanned and planned downtime. Companies should determine
the average cost of minor Tier 1 outages. They should also conduct detailed costassessments of the extended and more severe unplanned Tier 2 and Tier 3 incidents.
Know the monetary amount of each outage – including IT and end user salaries due totroubleshooting and any lost productivity – as well as the impact on the business. It’s also
useful to log the amount of time spent on planned downtime to upgrade servers andapplications and perform patch management. C-level executives and IT managers should
also pay close attention to whether the company’s reputation suffered as a result of areliability incident; did any litigation ensue; were customers, business partners andsuppliers impacted (and at what cost) and at least try and gauge whether or not thecompany lost business or potential business.

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Page 33

•Construct a list of best practices. Chief technology officers (CTOs), Chief Data
Officers (CDOs), software developers, engineers, network administrators and managers
should have extensive familiarity with the products they currently use and areconsidering. Check and adhere to your vendors’ list of approved, compatible hardware,
software and applications.

•

Keep a comprehensive record of downtime and associated costs. IT departments
should compile a detailed list of outages and all pertinent remediation efforts. Include
facts like the cause of the outage (e.g., hard drive failure, human error, manmade disasteretc.); the length/duration of downtime; the severity of the event (e.g., lost, damaged orstolen data; interrupted transactions). Also include the Mean Time to Detection and MeanTime to Remediation and Recovery. All company stakeholders should compile acomprehensive list of the costs incurred by all affected departments (IT and employees)
including the costs due to lost, damaged, destroyed or changed data. Companies should
also keep detailed records of any litigation costs as well as civil, criminal or noncompliance penalties resulting from outages whatever the circumstances. Compile a
detailed list of what IT and security staff participated in the remediation and what actions
were taken. This is an invaluable resource should the problem recur. It may also serve tocontain and minimize reliability-related incidents.

•

Be vigilant about security. Construct a comprehensive security plan and regularly
review and update it annually or as needed. The hackers constantly hone their skills.
Businesses must keep pace with cyber criminals. Organizations of all sizes and in allverticals should conduct vulnerability testing and regularly review and upgrade security
policies, procedures and products. Install the latest security updates. Regularvulnerability testing will expose potential entry points and holes in your company’s
defenses – on premises and at the network edge. Make sure your security administratorsand employees receive the proper training to enable them to recognize and thwart hacks.

•

Regularly analyze and review configurations, usage, and performance levels. This
will enable companies to determine whether current server and server OS environment
allows them to achieve optimal reliability.

•

Maintain Regulatory Compliance.

•

Don’t Defer Upgrades. Refresh and upgrade server hardware as needed to accommodate
more data intensive and virtualized workloads. The server hardware (standalone, blade,cluster, etc.) and the server operating system are inextricably linked. To achieve optimal
performance from both components, corporations must ensure that the server hardware isrobust enough to carry both the current and anticipated workloads. Applications are
getting larger. The number and percentage of virtualized servers continues to increase.
Virtual servers hosting multiple instances of mainstream LOB business-criticalapplications demand robust hardware. Organizations should purchase the beefiest server
configuration their budgets will allow. Waiting four, five or six years to refresh servers
while placing greater demands on the hardware, is asking for trouble.

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Page 34•Calculate the Cost of Hourly Downtime. There is no “one size fits all.” Hourly
downtime costs will vary according to the length, severity, and duration of the outage andwhether or not any data was lost, stolen, destroyed or changed. In the 21st century digitalera of 24 x 7 operations, there is also no “good time” for downtime. But there are worse
case scenarios. For example, a 15- or 20-minute outage that occurred in off-hours may
have negligible consequences, while a server that goes down for three minutes anddisrupts a crucial transaction potentially can cost the business thousands or even millions.

•

Adopt formal SLAs. Service level agreements enable organizations to define acceptableperformance metrics. Companies should meet with their vendors and customers to
conduct formal reviews on at least an annual basis to ensure all parties are fulfilling theterms and conditions of the SLA agreements.

•

Define measure and monitor reliability and performance metrics. Always measurecomponent, system, server hardware, server OS and desktop and server OS, security,
network infrastructure, storage, and application performance. Maintain records on theamount of planned and unplanned downtime.

•

Regularly track server and server OS reliability and downtime. The latest ITIC
survey statistics indicate that nearly half of all respondents – 49% – do not calculate thehourly cost of downtime. This is a mistake. To reiterate: maintain detailed and accurate
records of outages and their causes. Classify outages according to their severity andlength – e.g., Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3. The appropriate IT and department managers
should also keep detailed logs of remediation efforts in the event of the outage. These
logs should include a full account of remediation activities, specifying how the problem
was solved, how long it took to restore full operations.

Survey Methodology
ITIC’s 2023 Global Server Hardware and Server OS Reliability Survey, polled 1,900 C-level
executives, IT and security administrators in corporations worldwide from March through July
2023. The independent Web-based survey included multiple choice questions and one Essay
question. To maintain objectivity, ITIC accepted no vendor sponsorship. None of theparticipants received any remuneration. ITIC analysts also conducted two dozen first person
customer interviews to obtain anecdotal data and gain deeper, broader insights and contextual
knowledge of the trends that can bolster and/or undermine the economics and efficiency ofdaily business operations and technology purchasing decisions. ITIC employed authenticationand tracking mechanisms to ensure data integrity, prevent tampering and prohibit multiple
responses by the same parties.

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Page 35

Survey Demographics
Survey respondents were culled from a wide range of small and medium businesses (SMBs)
with fewer than 50 workers, to the largest, global, multinational enterprises with over 100,000
employees.
All market sectors were well represented: SMBs with one-to-100 employees accounted for 24%of the respondents. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with 101-to-1,000 workers
represented 27% of the participants. The remaining 49% of respondents came from large
enterprises with 1,001 to over 100,000 employees. Survey respondents hailed from 49 different
vertical markets. Approximately 60% of respondents hailed from North America and 40% wereinternational customers from more than 30 countries throughout Europe, Asia, Australia, New
Zealand, Central and South America and Africa.

AppendicesThis section contains links to the various ITIC statistics and surveys cited in this Report.
ITIC Website and links to survey data and blog posts:
https://itic-corp.com/itic-2022-global-server-reliability-results/
https://itic-corp.com/ibm-z-ibm-power-systems-lenovo-thinksystem-servers-most-securetoughest-to-crack/
https://itic-corp.com/server-and-application-by-the-numbers-understanding-the-nines/
https://itic-corp.com/security-data-breaches-top-cause-of-downtime-in-2022/
https://itic-corp.com/ibm-lenovo-hpe-and-huawei-servers-remain-reliable-and-secure-assecurity-hacks-data-breaches-surge/
https://itic-corp.com/44-of-enterprises-say-hourly-downtime-costs-top-1-million-with-covid-19security-hacks-and-remote-working-as-driving-factors/
https://itic-corp.com/blog/2021/05/ibm-lenovo-and-huawei-servers-most-secure-suffer-fewesthacks-as-covid-19-data-breaches-surge/
https://itic-corp.com/blog/2020/06/forty-percent-of-enterprises-say-hourly-downtime-costs-top1million/
https://itic-corp.com/blog/2020/05/itic-2020-reliability-poll-ibm-lenovo-hpe-huawei-missioncritical-servers-deliver-highest-uptime-availiability/©Copyright 2023 Information Technology Intelligence Consulting Corp. (ITIC) All rights reserved.
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Page 36https://itic-corp.com/blog/2019/11/ibm-lenovo-hpe-and-huawei-servers-maintain-top-reliabilityrankings-cisco-makes-big-gains-ibm-lenovo-hardware-up-to-24x-more-reliable-28x-moreeconomical-vs-least-reliable-white-box-servers/
https://itic-corp.com/blog/2019/11/1678/
https://itic-corp.com/blog/2019/08/itic-poll-human-error-and-security-are-top-issues-negativelyimpacting-reliability/
https://itic-corp.com/blog/2019/08/itic-2019-server-reliability-mid-year-update-ibm-z-ibmpower-lenovo-system-x-hpe-integrity-superdome-huawei-kunlun-deliver-highest-uptime/
http://itic-corp.com/blog/2017/07/ibm-z14-mainframe-advances-security-reliability-processingpower/
http://itic-corp.com/blog/2017/06/ibm-lenovo-servers-deliver-top-reliability-cisco-ucs-hpeintegrity-gain/©Copyright 2023 Information Technology Intelligence Consulting Corp. (ITIC) All rights reserved.
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Page 37