DSL™ - Downtime Severity Levels

Measuring the Depth of Downtime in Data Centers…

What are Downtime Severity Levels (DSL)

Downtime Severity Levels or DSL is a scale that measures the severity of a Data Center downtime, according to its impact level. It is designed to be used for Critical Essential Systems.

It is a seven levels scale, that classifies the severity of the Data Center downtime according to:

  • Causes of Downtime: These can be related to Inherent Events (Preventive Maintenance, Failures/CM, Critical Event), or Non-Inherent Events (Catastrophic Event, Catastrophic Failure).

  • Depth of Impact: Is basically the location affected by the maintenance/failure or by any other internal/external event related to Structures, Systems and Components (SSCs).

DSL and Depth of Impact of Downtime

Inherent Downtimes

Critical Downtime

DSL 5

Data Center Critical Systems

Source: “Downtime Severity Levels (DSL) - A way of measure Impact of Downtime in Data Centers”. 7x24 Exchange Magazine - 2023 Spring Issue

The DSL was designed as a communication tool, in order to objectively categorize the severity of any event/incident that caused a downtime to any Component, System, Structure of a Data Center.

Component PM

Depth of Impact

Component Level

DSL 2

DSL 1

System Level

Critical Room Level

Site Level

Non-Inherent Downtimes

DSL 7

Catastrophic Failure

DSL 6

Catastrophic Event

No Downtime = “DSL 0”

Critical Room Downtime

DSL 3

Component Failure/CM

System PM

DSL 4

System Failure/CM

Using DSL for Forensic Analysis

As shown in the figure Case Scenario #1: The DSL scale can be used to effectively run post-mortem analysis in order to determine:

  1. Chain Reaction (Components - Systems - Structures)

  2. Response Time (Total Downtime, Recovery Time)

  3. Potential Causes (Interactions - Human Induced Failures)

DSL graphical representation, can easily explain any abnormal incident, in a simple manner in order to represent the complete downtime event.

Do you want to know more about how to implement Downtime Severity Levels in your Data Center ?

Contact us: info@seresdc.com

Downtime Severity Levels Article was selected as Cover for 7x24 Exchange Magazine 2023 Spring Issue

Credits: 7x24 Exchange Magazine (2023 Spring Issue)