7 Causes of Major Software Outages–And How to Avoid Them

Most businesses underestimate the impact of software outrages.

Today’s competitive business environment and impatient customers leave no room for downtime. When a major software outage leads to downtime, customers go elsewhere and businesses lose opportunities. The disruption of services can damage reputation and also cause financial losses.

An hour’s downtime causes losses to the tune of $365,000, on average.

Here are the seven leading causes of software outrages. Find out how enterprises can pre-empt them or recover from them fast.

1. Software Bugs

Poor code causes software bugs. But the underlying cause of poor code is inadequate testing.

Most developers face pressure to release their products fast. Faster time to market delivers first mover advantage. Developers speed up time to market by compromising on testing.

Poor testing practices mean releasing the software with bugs.

Some of the possible scenarios include:

The software components interact in unanticipated ways.
Incompatibility of different services.
Errors in code. For instance, a division by zero in a financial application or a null pointer exception in the web server when processing a request can lead to crashes and data loss.
Memory leaks in the database management system, which consume all available memory and cause the system to crash.

Developers expect to solve those bugs later through patch updates. But by such time the business already suffers from the ill effects of the disruption.

The solution to pre-empting bugs includes

Thorough, automated testing
Continuous integration practices.
Code reviews and quality assurance process during the development phase.

2. Old Software

Server software and OS too old to run modern applications is a common cause for outrage. Often, IT managers do not update outdated software, and pay the price when the application hangs. The OS become slow and sluggish, leading to performance issues and the application getting struck. Software conflicts and compatibility issues cause the applications to crash.

As solutions,

Update all software, including operating systems, applications, and drivers, to the latest versions. These updates contain security patches and fix bugs, besides delivering performance improvements.
Make proactive assessments of software and hardware statuses. If the software has reached the end of life, with no support available, it becomes expedient to change over to a new version.

3. Hardware and Network Failure

Hardware failures leading to outages are more commonplace than one assumes. Some of the leading instances of physical damages that lead to hardware and network failure are:

Problems with the internet service providers, such as cable cuts.
Hardware failure of routers or other networking equipment.
Issues at the data centre, such as a floor or fire.
Power cuts combined with the backup generators not working.
Improper configuration, especially of backups.

As solutions,

Update the hardware. Old hardware can cause network congestion and cannot execute complex applications.
Have a comprehensive disaster recovery plan. Perform regular recovery tests to ensure the backup systems can step up when needed.
Have redundant servers in place, to take over even if one data centre goes down. Cloud service providers offer such redundancy, so the issue is more with on-premises systems.
Have multiple recovery options in place, including snapshots, replication and backups.
Institute strong network monitoring and management practices. Automate failover systems and redundant network paths to maintain connectivity during disruptions.

4. Human Error

Human error is a leading cause of tech outages. Mistakes during routine maintenance, misconfigurations, and accidental deletions are all too common. For instance, a maintenance technician may delete a critical database by accident. Or incorrect configuration changes can lose connectivity, leading to downtime.

One of the most high-profile outages ever was Facebook going down for more than six hours in 2021. The cause was a faulty configuration change. The change was either a mistake, a plan gone wrong, or could even have been sabotaged.

The solutions to prevent human errors are:

Optimal staffing of IT teams. Understaffed IT departments lead to overworked personnel, who make more mistakes.
Training technicians and other members of the IT team, to increase their competence, and reduce mistakes.
Strict change management protocols, to minimise deviations from norms,
Instituting cross-checks and review processes as a safeguard against errors.
Investing in automated systems for routine tasks

5. Traffic Spikes and Unexpected Demands

Sudden traffic spikes, owing to seasonal rush or other causes, overwhelm systems not designed to handle such loads. When a large number of users try to access the website at once, the servers get overloaded and the database cannot process queries fast enough. The website crashes or slows down.

For instance, a surge in traffic due to a major sale event can crash a retail website if the website server is not equipped to handle the increased load.

The heavy load may also surface hidden bugs or inefficiencies in the website’s application code.

To pre-empt crashes during high traffic:

Invest in scalable infrastructure and technologies such as load-balancing, and load-scaling. Conduct performance testing and stress tests. Such tests assess the performance of websites and other resources under heavy and unexpected loads.
Develop contingency plans to ensure systems remain operational during spikes in usage.

6. Cyber Attacks

Cyberattacks continue relentlessly. The total damages inflicted by cyber crimes will touch $9.5 trillion USD globally, in 2024

The most common cyber attacks leading to outages and disruptions include

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). In DDoS attacks, the threat actors overwhelm servers with traffic. The server, unable to handle such loads crashes, and the website or service becomes unavailable.
Ransomware attacks that encrypt critical data or lock users out of systems. The threat actors offer the decryption key only on payment of ransom. Operations halt until the enterprise pays the ransom.
Remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities. Here, the attacker exploits the system’s software or configuration weakness to gain access. Once inside, they perform malicious access such as stealing data, installing malware, or launching further attacks.

There is no shortcut to robust security measures. The best approach combines proactive preventive measures and strong countermeasures. Traditional perimeter-based and static signature-based firewalls cannot protect against today’s AI-powered threats. Effective protection requires an integrated strategy that co-opts

Adaptive Threat Protection (ATP). ATP enables a flexible and dynamic security architecture depending on the risk assessment.
Zero-Trust. Zero Trust co-opts robust access management and micro-segmentation. This preempts unauthorised access and contains the threat in the event of a breach.
Strong network monitoring and robust governance frameworks, backed up by regular audits.
Strong incident response and recovery plans, including backups.

7. Third-Party Failures

At times, an outage may have nothing to do with the enterprise. Failure of third-party services critical to the operation of a system causes applications to fail. For instance, if a cloud provider experiences an outage, all applications that rely on their services fail.

The causes for such failures can be any of the reasons mentioned above or even planned maintenance downtime.

Businesses can overcome such third-party failures by:

Relying on multiple providers for critical services to avoid the risk of a single point of failure. Backup data centres and network connections minimise downtime in case of failures.
Partnering with providers who meet high uptime and performance standards.
Developing a comprehensive incident response and disaster recovery plan. Make sure the plans include strategies for mitigating the impact of third-party service failures.
Notify customers and users of upcoming planned disruptions. In case of unplanned downtime, be transparent and offer regular updates.

One robust tool available in the market to safeguard against all types of outages is Dynatrace. Dynatrace’s AI-powered observability platform offers complete views of all services and applications. System admins can use the platform to identify the root cause of issues and make quick remediation. Used the right way, these tools enhance the reliability and resilience of the enterprise IT infrastructure.

Andre Rodrigues

As a software and IT solutions advisor, Andre leads a team of technology consultants for implementing Account-based Marketing strategies to IT customers. In his 30 years of working experience, across the region, Andre has helped numerous clients improve existing business systems and IT infrastructure. This experience has helped Andre secure a unique knowledge and understanding of the challenges faced by these sectors.