Different Types of IT Failure: In a way, your IT infrastructure is no different than a stack of dominoes. If one domino falls, the rest follow.

Most businesses have connected systems comprising different hardware and software that enables information exchange. Employees at every level use this coherent distributed system of computers, servers, and other devices to complete their tasks and communicate with others.

As a result, any disruption can affect the workflow and processes, leading to time wastage, financial losses, and even emotional distress.

Unfortunately, even with the rapid advancement of business technologies in the post-pandemic age, IT failures and downtime remain a reality every business has to face from time to time.

In this post, we’ll talk about the most common types of IT failures businesses deal with and how they affect their operations and performance.

The 6 Most Common Types of IT Failure of Infrastructure

1.    Hardware Failure

Hardware failure is the most common type of IT failure in organizations. Whether it’s a computer, server, peripheral, or other essential devices, it can fail for many reasons, including voltage spikes, poor maintenance, vandalism, or water damage.

Most businesses experience network failures throughout the year due to faulty routers, switches, motherboards, hard drives, and other components that make up the network infrastructure.

2.    Software Failure

Most modern organizations rely on different software tools and applications to get things done. However, just like hardware, software solutions are also susceptible to failure due to many reasons, including license expiration, bad updates, misconfiguration, or bugs, to name a few.

Software failures cause massive financial damage, from $1.7 trillion globally in a 2017 study to billions from single incidents, like the CrowdStrike outage costing Fortune 500 firms billions, or Knight Capital’s $440M loss from a bug, demonstrating impacts through lost revenue, security breaches (Equifax), operational disruption (United Airlines grounding), and reputational harm. Costs include direct losses (fines, lost sales) and hidden ones (brand trust, future growth). 

3.    Resource Failure

Resource failure is any IT failure that disrupts your operations without damaging your IT infrastructure.

The biggest example of this is a power failure that can lead to unnecessary downtime since most hardware devices require electricity to function. While many organizations have backups in place, a major blackout could also affect their customers or clients, leading to a halt in operations.

Another example of resource failure is an accident or natural disaster (fire, flood, earthquake, etc.) that affects your outsourced data centers. Today, thousands of organizations opt for cloud storage to save cost and space. Hence, disruption from their provider’s end could lead to catastrophic business consequences.

4.    Storage Failures

Organizations that store their data in-house often deal with storage failure caused by faulty hard drives or physical storage devices and server downtime.

Server issues typically occur when one or many drives fail, resulting in data loss. Many small or traditional businesses still employ outdated configurations that require replacements before they can regain their function again.

Any form of lost data can have severe legal, financial, or reputational consequences. Hence, businesses must ensure they opt for a powerful backup solution and adopt cloud technology to distribute and enhance their data storage capabilities.

5.    Human Error

In many cases, IT failure and downtime happens due to unintentional human errors, such as accidental hardware damage and software configuration mistakes. Most professionals in the modern age use different devices and applications at the workplace. Therefore, they’re bound to make mistakes that could lead to disaster.

For instance, a coffee spill in the server room could lead to unnecessary repairs that could take hours. Similarly, bad wiring could lead to short circuits or other electrical issues.

Many IT professionals responsible for managing enterprise software and servers often make mistakes in VLAN configurations and routing, resulting in network changes that disrupt or stop the workflow altogether.

6.    Security Failure

Finally, we have security failure – the fastest-growing IT failure type in the current business landscape since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, millions of businesses have reported at least one data breach that has halted their operations or resulted in financial, legal, and other losses.

Security IT failure is caused by several malicious attacks, such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Hackers use this attack to send thousands of requests to a site or server, causing an immense load that can cause it to go offline and halt operations.

Malware and ransomware have also become popular types of attacks hackers use to gain access to servers, apps, websites, computers, etc., to gain full control or alter their functionality. Many attacks are done to encrypt user data and ask owners for a ransom to unlock it.

Conclusion

Today, businesses of all sizes and niches invest heavily in infrastructure robustness. Yet, thousands of organizations experience hardware and software downtime that mildly disrupts or incapacitates their operations entirely.

Even though the situation might sometimes seem awkward, it has become an inherently accepted and expected aspect of day-to-day IT operations.

However, they remain a vital threat to the industry as most modern businesses rely on their IT infrastructures for collecting, processing, and sharing data across their business ecosystems.

At Percento Technologies, we aim to do more than share awareness related to IT failure and downtime, and outages. We also offer state-of-the-art performance optimization, Cybersecurity, and other enterprise IT solutions to keep your business running.

So, get in touch with our team to discuss your IT needs and let us accelerate your digital transition and maximize business availability.