Downtime survey - the results are in
 
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Readers of this column will remember we conducted a very brief survey of our readers to see what level of uptime people would accept in their messaging system, and how well that system met their expectations. Here are the results of that survey.
Please keep in mind that this survey was self-selecting and does not represent Computer Networks' standard methodology. It isn't a representative sample of the installed base, either. But it's interesting, nonetheless.
Users of Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise heavily dominated this survey. We found that Exchange was the primary messaging system used by 53% of respondents, while GroupWise was the primary system for 28%. Other systems, such as Lotus Notes/Domino and Netscape Mail, accounted for between 5% and 9% of respondents.
We found that users' acceptable uptime levels for Microsoft Exchange are lower than for non-Exchange systems. About 13% of organizations that use Exchange as their primary messaging system consider uptime of greater than 99.9% to be acceptable, 39% consider uptime of 99.9% to be acceptable, and 26% consider uptime of 99.5% to 99.8% to be acceptable. For organizations that use other systems as their primary messaging system, 55% consider uptime of greater than 99.9% to be acceptable, 20% consider uptime of 99.9% to be acceptable, and 20% consider uptime of 99.5% to 99.8% to be acceptable.
Interestingly, while acceptable uptime levels for non-Exchange-based systems are higher, these systems meet acceptable uptime levels better than Exchange, according to the survey. We asked respondents to rate how well their messaging system met their acceptable uptime level on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely well). We found that 43% of Exchange-enabled organizations rated their system a "5," and 30% rated it a "4." Among non-Exchange-enabled organizations, on the other hand, 85% rated their system a "5," and 10% rated it a "4."
RELATED LINKS
Michael D. Osterman is the principal of Osterman Research, a market research firm that helps organizations understand the markets for messaging, directory and related products and services. He can be reached by clicking here.
Messaging archive
Past newsletters.
Network World, 01/10/00.
An end to downtime
Network World, 07/05/99.
Reliability? I guess you mean an uptime of 99.999
Network World, 07/05/99.
Archive of Network World on Groupware and Messaging newsletters
