Availability Metrics
Availability metrics are quantitative measures used to assess the reliability and uptime of systems, services, or applications, typically expressed as a percentage of time a system is operational and accessible to users. They are fundamental in IT operations, site reliability engineering (SRE), and DevOps to monitor service health, set service level objectives (SLOs), and ensure business continuity. Common metrics include uptime percentage, mean time between failures (MTBF), mean time to recovery (MTTR), and service level agreements (SLAs).
Developers should learn and use availability metrics when building, deploying, or maintaining critical systems to ensure reliability, meet user expectations, and comply with contractual obligations like SLAs. Specific use cases include monitoring cloud services, setting SLOs for microservices architectures, and conducting post-incident analyses to improve system resilience in industries such as e-commerce, finance, and healthcare where downtime can lead to significant revenue loss or safety issues.