Abstract
Our constituents expect a high level of availability as they compare our systems to Amazon.com, Yahoo, E-trade, or other commercial sites, but it goes beyond expectations. Applications that support e-commerce or distributed learning may have business models that require high levels of availability. But what does 24 by 7 really mean? This presentation focuses on the problems of achieving near 24 X 7 or continuous availability. A discussion of issues includes application design, development life cycle, fault tolerance, redundancy, and change management. Solutions address establishing clear goals, measurement techniques, and technical solutions.