Public authorities have the most downtime. Banks have the least. This is the finding of SiteScanner’s availability measurements taken in the autumn of 2009.
“The figures show that the amount of downtime varies greatly from one industry to another. In some sectors things are looking good while others are falling way below acceptable levels,” says Olle Bodelius at SiteScanner.
SiteScanner is introducing an industry index consisting of ten areas in which the web plays a business-critical role. The index is based on ten randomly selected companies from every industry. First the system works out the number of hours of downtime at each company and then calculates the average value for the industry.
This average value can serve as a guideline for what is acceptable in terms of external web availability, which in some industries left a lot to be desired.
Public authorities and the media were by far the worst performers when it came to availability. Authorities had an average of 26 hours of downtime - more than a whole day - during the five-month measurement period; an alarmingly high figure. The media trailed close behind with 23 hours of downtime.
“Many media websites are bloated and get a lot of visitors. This explains their poor performance. But the authorities have no such excuse,” says Olle Bodelius, CEO at SiteScanner.
The industry that has succeeded the best in terms of web availability was the finance sector. On average, banking and finance websites had five hours of downtime measured over the five-month period. Search engines and public information websites were also among the leaders, recording six and seven hours’ downtime respectively.