Nokia Study: Reliability is Top Priority for Data Center Networks

Espoo, Finland – IT infrastructure leaders rank reliability as the foremost criterion when building data center networks, surpassing ease of integration and cost considerations. This finding comes from a joint study by Nokia and Futurum Research, which highlights the substantial costs associated with network downtime for businesses.

The research indicated that 86% of respondents cited reliability as their most important decision criterion. Ease of integration was important for 82%, while operational simplicity was a priority for 74%. Notably, only about 3% of respondents identified cost as a primary factor, suggesting a willingness to invest in reliability over budget constraints.

The study revealed that a single hour of unplanned downtime would cause critical internal workflow disruptions for 80% of companies and major customer-facing service disruptions for 74%. An estimated 68% anticipate significant revenue loss from such an outage, with nearly half (45%) predicting they would suffer internal, customer, and financial hits simultaneously.

Over the past 12 months, 74% of companies experienced at least one significant data center outage. Common causes cited include network hardware failures and human errors, alongside facility issues like power or cooling problems and software bugs.

Organizations are increasingly investing in resilience measures, including redundant architectures, failover systems, and enhanced monitoring. Network reliability is actively tracked, with 82% of companies maintaining formal KPIs or SLAs for network uptime. Increasingly, business outcomes like customer satisfaction and lost revenue are used as key reliability metrics.