ThousandEyes' new Internet Performance Report reveals the impact of COVID-19 on Internet disruption. These rose by 63 percent worldwide in March; Internet service providers were hit hardest.
ThousandEyes, the internet and cloud intelligence company, announces the results of its first internet performance report 2020. This is a first-time study of the availability and performance of networks with regard to the Internet, including those of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), public cloud, content delivery network (CDN) and Domain Name System (DNS) -Sellers. By measuring the respective performance over a certain period of time, the report examines the consequences of changes in Internet use due to COVID-19 and shows how these varied in the different regions and with the different providers.
"The Internet is inherently unpredictable, and outages are inevitable even under normal conditions," said Angelique Medina, research author and director of product marketing at ThouandEyes. “However, with the overnight shift to home office, home schooling and increased use of on-demand entertainment services in many countries in March, we have seen outages on an unprecedented scale. This was particularly the case with internet service providers, who appeared to be more prone to disruption than cloud providers. The Internet Performance Report allows companies to compare Internet performance before and after COVID-19. They can then use this information to plan for a more resilient IT environment. At the same time, they can build additional infrastructure that manages the external dependencies of cloud and internet networks that the employee and consumer user experience is built on.”
SaaS applications and the increasing dependence on the Internet
The rapid establishment of cloud services, the widespread use of SaaS applications and the increasing dependence on the Internet have brought high risks to business continuity for companies. ThousandEyes is an enterprise software platform that enables companies to view the Internet like their own network. The platform draws its knowledge based on millions of Internet nodes worldwide, which carry out billions of measurements every day and can thus determine when the flow of data traffic is interrupted. In this way, the exact performance of various services can be measured.
ThousandEyes leverages this unique internet intelligence to review and understand how internet, cloud and other third-party dependencies affect the end-user's digital experience. Based on measurements taken between January and July 2020, the Internet Performance Report offers important insights into the resilience and functionality of the global Internet and helps companies to provide their IT and business planning with a data-driven perspective.
The ThousandEyes study shows the internal failures due to Covid-19 load in March 2020
The main results of the Internet Performance Report 2020: COVID-19 Impact Edition:
- Internet disruption worldwide has seen an unprecedented increase. In March, these increased by 63 percent compared to January and remained higher than before the pandemic until the first half of 2020. In June there were 44 percent more disruptions compared to January.
- At Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the EMEA region, the outages continue to increase monthly, with 45 percent more disruptions in June compared to January. North America and the Asia-Pacific region experienced peak values in March of 65 percent (North America) and 99 percent (Asia-Pacific) compared to January and have since settled back to a level that is typical for these regions.
- ISPs were hardest hit, while cloud provider networks were generally more stable. Between January and July, cloud providers experienced approx. 400 failures worldwide compared to more than approx. 4.500 in ISP networks. Based on the total number of failures, more than 80 percent occurred in ISP networks and less than 10 percent in networks of cloud providers.
- Although the total number of outages increased in all regions, the impact on Internet users differed. Compared to pre-pandemic patterns, a greater proportion of outages in the EMEA region typically occurred during peak business hours. In contrast, the majority of major outages in North America occurred outside of normal business hours and therefore may not have had a major impact on Internet users.
- Overall, the internet has held up well. Despite unprecedented conditions and an increase in network disruptions, the infrastructures based on the Internet have been able to hold their own, which indicates an overall high capacity, scalability and flexibility of the operators, which are necessary to adapt to the unforeseen requirements. Negative performance indicators such as delays, losses and instability in terms of data traffic generally remained within tolerable limits, so that there were no signs of a systemic emergency.
- Increased network interruptions due to adjustments made by operators. Many of the network interruptions observed after February appeared to be related to the fact that network operators were making more changes to their networks in order to compensate for the changed conditions in terms of data traffic.
“Both companies and service providers initially struggled to adapt to remote work overnight. However, we are now seeing a clear shift towards permanent arrangements for working from home,” said Paul Bevan, Research Director, IT Infrastructure, Bloor Research. “This will result in a realignment of the network infrastructure that will be significantly different from the network platforms deployed prior to March. The results of the ThousandEyes study will go a long way in helping organizations understand the interdependencies between internal and external networks. Additionally, it will give them a better understanding of how IT infrastructures can be strengthened now that the Internet has become a core component of most businesses more than ever.”
For the full results of the Internet Performance Report 2020: COVID-19 Impact Edition, download the study from ThousandEyes.
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About ThousandEyes ThousandEyes, the Internet and Cloud Intelligence company, enables comprehensive insight into the Internet based on aggregated information. This enables companies and service providers to work together to optimize quality for end users. The ThousandEyes platform uses information from a variety of global data points on the Internet, from data centers, VPCs and end-user devices to highlight dependencies that affect service delivery and performance. This enables companies to understand and optimize the user experience of customers and employees of digital websites, applications and services. ThousandEyes is central to the world's largest and fastest growing companies, including more than 140 of the Global 2000, over 80 of the Fortune 500, six of the top seven US banks, and 20 of the top 25 SaaS companies. For more information, please visit www.ThousandEyes.com or follow us on Twitter @ThousandEyes.